Everyone knows Fortnite is the biggest game in the world on every platform - or is it? New figures reveal that another mobile game was the highest earning battle royale title.


Fortnite may have dominated on consoles and PC, but for mobile gaming, it was NetEase's 'Knives Out' which took the top spot for revenue in 2018.

The game has been labelled as a PUBG clone, and its premise is certainly very similar, with a 6400x6400m map and has been downloaded over 250 million times.


According to a report from Sensor Tower, Knives Out generated a whopping $465 million worldwide in 2018, ahead of Fortnite's $455 million.

This figure is almost entirely generated from players in Japan, where the game is exceedingly popular. Sensor Tower report that nearly 80% of Knives Out revenue came from Japan, with only 1% from the US.

Knives Out also has the upper hand in China, the world's largest market for mobile gaming, because they are able to accept in-app purchases, unlike rivals PUBG, because NetEase is a China based company.

Knives Out has been labelled a PUBG 'clone' Knives Out has been labelled a PUBG 'clone'


Sensor Tower say that the average Japanese player spent $370 on Knives Out in 2018, across iOS App Store and Google Play.

There is a major caveat to these statistics however, as Fortnite's Android revenue is not disclosed by Epic Games, after they bypassed the Google Play store.

Fortnite is also currently unable to generate revenue from the game in China, where it is distributed by Tencent, because of ongoing game license approvals in the country.