Top Grossing iOS Apps in 2013: Clash of Clans, Candy Crush, Hay Day

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Amsterdam-based apps analytics platform, Distimo, published its figures for the top grossing apps in Apple’s App Store for December 2013 and revised its figures for the year of 2013. On Tuesday, Apple announced that iOS users have spent more than $10 billion in the App Store last year, one billion of which was spent in December alone.

Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Saga, and Hay Day topped the list taking number 1, 2, and 3 slots, respectively. All three of these games were founded and developed by European game developers. Minecraft was created by Mojang AB, a Stockholm-based company, and came in at 6th place, moving up one position year-over-year.

In comparison, Google’s Play Store had a very different end result in 2013 with Candy Crush Saga as the top grossing app, but the other nine games were created by Asian game makers.

Matt Bai from the New York Times has an interesting story about Jorge Yao who became the top ranked Clash of Clans player. It all started when is 8-year old boy who wanted to join a clan. Little did his father know that he meant Clash of Clans, where you can buy gems in amounts of up to $100 at a time, making it very easy to see how this strategy game for iOS became the top grossing app of 2013. Jorge Yao, who joined the same clan as Bai and his son, became the top ranked player in the game, taking his iPad in the shower with him to sustain the number one position.

In the process, the 25-year-old who called himself Jorge Yao joined a new breed of virtual celebrity. The first of his seven audio-only interviews with a blogger named Flammy racked up almost 400,000 YouTube views. He has attracted more than 79,000 Twitter followers and almost 30,000 “likes” on Facebook. Videos of his rampages on other villages, or of his troops repelling other people’s invaders, went viral. Sometimes Jorge Yao would make surprise visits to other clans, just to reward the fans who were sending him daily tweets.

I encourage you to read the entire story in the link above.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

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