Minecraft is not the #1 paid app anymore. Reason? Coronavirus.

Plague Inc. outranks the all-time leader Minecraft to become the Top Paid App on App Store, US. Minecraft, which was the best paid app on the App Store for several years, gave way to the plague simulation game on January 23 and never make up since then.

It only seems that mobile games are a stand-alone market, in fact, global events can significantly affect the state of things. So, recent days events changed the status quo on App Store Top Charts, which has been constant for years. The coronavirus outbreak blew up in China, became the leading world news in a couple of hours. Residents of those countries where no cases of the disease have been reported yet still pay close attention to the latest virus news. Alongside the virus kick-up, the British mobile game Plague Inc. was roused.

Plague Inc. is a real-time strategy simulation game, where the player creates and evolves a pathogen in an effort to destroy the world with a deadly plague. The game uses an epidemic model with a complex and realistic set of variables to simulate the spread and severity of the plague.

Analytics companies highlight the Plague Inc. downloads increase every time there is a global virus outbreak. Players believe that by studying the mechanics of spreading the virus in the game, they will be able to predict the spread of the actual viruses in real life.

The Ndemic Creation (Plague Inc. developer) claims they especially created the game realistic and informative however Plague Inc. is not a scientific model and the current coronavirus outbreak is a very real situation which is impacting a huge number of people.

They have also recommended to consult the WHO (World Health Organization) to get more information about the virus.

What does the coronavirus outbreak mean for the mobile marketplace?

The overall downloads & revenue of the Plague Inc. game increased sharply in a few days since January 20. The majority of downloads are generated by the US and China (App Store) and the US and Russia (Google Play).

Minecraft game which was #1 Paid App on App Store (US) almost all the last year, fall down and it's a significant break down. However, unlike Plague Inc., Minecraft’s popularity does not depend on global events, so we expect to see the game on the fist line of Top Chart as soon as the virus outbreak is eliminated.