For 13 years, Subway Surfers’ obtain price 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 kids growing old into cellphone utilization, and customers in much less developed international locations reaching a stage of affluence that enables them to buy their first smartphones. This regular inflow of gamers has made Subway Surfers probably the most downloaded cell recreation of all time, with 4.5 billion lifetime downloads.
Lately, nevertheless, Subway Surfers’ site visitors has arrived in additional dramatic waves. In 2020, the app noticed a surge of recent customers after TikTokers found a option to “hack” the game. 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’ guardian firm SYBO, understands the important function social media performs within the recreation’s continued progress. A lot of its early opponents 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 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 “brain rot” content material. These posts sometimes layer two unrelated movies: one displaying a TV show or narrated Reddit post, the opposite that includes a online game. Additionally referred to 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.
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 definitely do maintain Subway Surfers within the dialog.
“[TikTokers] know we’re not going to go after them for posting our content material,” Nørvig says. “We’ve a really completely 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 group additionally spends appreciable time supporting the move 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 IP that we’re capable of 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 monitor youthful gamers instantly, however Nørvig estimates anecdotally that about half of the sport’s gamers are below 18. That determine doesn’t account for the various youngsters taking part in on grownup units, which may push the share even greater.
In fact, not all social media tendencies are constructive. In New York Metropolis, a TikTok problem lately inspired some younger folks to attempt hopping between subway vehicles. Not less than six folks died in 2024 making an attempt the stunt. Nørvig calls the development “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.
“Prepare 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’ll do in actual life,” Nørvig says. “It’s clearly a recreation, and a foolish recreation at that, and due to this fact we don’t have any direct connection to it.”
Can TikTok maintain a 13-year-old recreation on prime?
Nørvig sees Subway Surfers as a part of a standout group of Scandinavian cell video games. There’s Angry Birds, launched in 2009, and Candy Crush, which debuted in 2012. Each stay sturdy performers, although Subway Surfers’ obtain price now outpaces them by a large margin, in response to analysts. It additionally stands out as the one recreation within the group embracing such a deeply TikTok-driven technique—although it stays laborious 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 remainder generated by way of in-app purchases. Month-to-month lively customers stay comparatively regular—except for viral spikes—at 100 to 150 million. With such a secure person 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 lots of video games have lived 10-plus years,” he tells Quick Firm.
Ariel Michaeli, CEO of Appfigures, takes a extra skeptical stance. Cell recreation downloads have declined throughout the board on each the App Retailer and Google Play. “However Subway Surfers has dropped a little bit bit greater than everybody else,” he says, citing the corporate’s inside monitoring. “It was once primary for a really very long time. Over the previous few months, it began slowly happening [the ranking] . . . Subway Surfers has been round for therefore lengthy that there’s fatigue.”
And what if TikTok disappeared? That appears unlikely within the U.S. for now, with President Donald Trump having extended 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 right now’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 probably the most downloaded viral recreation,” Nørvig says. “Everybody else has paid for his or her site visitors to get on that record.”
