For 13 years, Subway Surfers’ obtain fee has been constant: about a million new installs each single day.
Half of these downloads come from customers upgrading to new units. The opposite half comes from youngsters ageing into cellphone utilization, and customers in much less developed nations reaching a degree of affluence that enables them to buy their first smartphones. This regular inflow of gamers has made Subway Surfers essentially the most downloaded cell sport of all time, with 4.5 billion lifetime downloads.
Lately, nonetheless, Subway Surfers’ site visitors has arrived in additional dramatic waves. In 2020, the app noticed a surge of recent customers after TikTokers found a method to “hack” the sport. In 2022, a tenth anniversary social media marketing campaign—mixed with a TikTok-viral “no coin” problem—as soon as once more despatched downloads hovering.
Mathias Gredal Nørvig, CEO of Subway Surfers’ mother or father firm SYBO, understands the very important position social media performs within the sport’s continued progress. A lot of its early rivals have vanished: Draw One thing and Zombie Farm are now not on the app retailer, and Temple Run (which as soon as impressed Subway Surfers) has stagnated. By way of TikTok, although, Subway Surfers has stored its edge.
“The truth that TikTok loves us means we’re additionally being rewarded by Apple and Google, as a result of their algorithms see what tendencies on different platforms,” Nørvig says. “It’s a flywheel of activation.”
Subway Surfers’ social media dominance
TikTok is crowded with so-called “mind rot” content material. These posts sometimes layer two unrelated movies: one displaying a TV present or narrated Reddit publish, the opposite that includes a online game. Additionally known as “sludge content material,” the movies lull the doomscrolling mind right into a passive state, watching and listening because the parallel feeds play. It’s like “Cocomelon” for youngsters.
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Nørvig takes a a lot sunnier view of those movies, saying they “offer you a second of zen.” In addition they incessantly characteristic Subway Surfers, repeatedly bringing TikTok customers again to SYBO’s IP. There’s no clear proof that these “mind rot” movies drive viewers to the App Retailer, however they actually do preserve Subway Surfers within the dialog.
“[TikTokers] know we’re not going to go after them for posting our content material,” Nørvig says. “We’ve got a really totally different method from different corporations, the place they do much more policing of social media.”
Subway Surfers’ in-house social media channels are led by Celia Zimmermann, SYBO’s head of participant expertise. Whereas the corporate produces loads of its personal content material throughout platforms, the workforce additionally spends appreciable time supporting the circulate of organically created content material. Zimmermann describes the sport’s openness as “courageous,” noting that many group managers at different gaming corporations don’t have the identical velocity for green-lighting. “We’ve got IP that we’re in a position to be fairly versatile with,” she says.
This social momentum is particularly necessary for Subway Surfers’ younger viewers. Many tween gamers collect on platforms like TikTok. SYBO doesn’t observe youthful gamers immediately, however Nørvig estimates anecdotally that about half of the sport’s gamers are underneath 18. That determine doesn’t account for the various youngsters enjoying on grownup units, which might push the share even larger.
After all, not all social media tendencies are constructive. In New York Metropolis, a TikTok problem lately inspired some younger individuals to attempt hopping between subway automobiles. At the very least six individuals died in 2024 making an attempt the stunt. Nørvig calls the pattern “unlucky” and says SYBO would by no means repost or amplify harmful content material, although the corporate finally determined to not subject a public assertion.
“Practice browsing has been a factor that persons are doing in New York, fortunately very seldom, however we haven’t seen with our downloads that individuals consider it as one thing they will do in actual life,” Nørvig says. “It’s clearly a sport, and a foolish sport at that, and subsequently we don’t have any direct connection to it.”
Can TikTok preserve a 13-year-old sport on high?
Nørvig sees Subway Surfers as a part of a standout group of Scandinavian cell video games. There’s Offended Birds, launched in 2009, and Sweet Crush, which debuted in 2012. Each stay sturdy performers, although Subway Surfers’ obtain fee now outpaces them by a large margin, in accordance with analysts. It additionally stands out as the one sport within the group embracing such a deeply TikTok-driven technique—although it stays arduous to say whether or not virality and income at all times go hand in hand.
Whereas SYBO declined to share actual income figures, Nørvig notes that 80 to 85% of the corporate’s income comes from promoting, with the remaining generated by means of in-app purchases. Month-to-month energetic customers stay comparatively regular—except for viral spikes—at 100 to 150 million. With such a secure consumer base, income shifts at SYBO are inclined to comply with fluctuations within the advert market.
Analysts are break up on Subway Surfers’ future. Samuel Aune, a gaming insights analyst at Sensor Tower, helps Nørvig’s view of long-term stability. He describes the sport’s 10-year obtain curve as “actually constant,” particularly when in comparison with its friends. “Not loads of video games have lived 10-plus years,” he tells Quick Firm.
Ariel Michaeli, CEO of Appfigures, takes a extra skeptical stance. Cellular sport downloads have declined throughout the board on each the App Retailer and Google Play. “However Subway Surfers has dropped a bit of bit greater than everybody else,” he says, citing the corporate’s inner monitoring. “It was primary for a really very long time. Over the previous few months, it began slowly taking place [the ranking] . . . Subway Surfers has been round for thus lengthy that there’s fatigue.”
And what if TikTok disappeared? That appears unlikely within the U.S. for now, with President Donald Trump having prolonged the TikTok ban deadline for a 3rd time. However in India, the place TikTok is banned, Subway Surfers needed to pivot. “Fb is their go-to, and so is YouTube, in order that’s the place the place we go to have interaction with them,” Zimmermann says.
For now, Subway Surfers holds its lead. Nørvig argues that amongst as we speak’s top-ranked cell video games, it’s the just one rising organically. Its regular stream of downloads continues, pushed by sturdy, recognizable IP and good social media technique—not by much less clear forces.
“We’re nonetheless essentially the most downloaded viral sport,” Nørvig says. “Everybody else has paid for his or her site visitors to get on that record.”
