Fun Run has 10M monthly active gamers; Israel and Singapore among top countries

Fun Run is a simple Mario Kart-like game downloaded by over 30 million users on their Android or iOS devices. Launched only in September 5, 2012, the game already has over 10 million monthly active users to date.

Aurora Klæboe Berg, a representative of Fun Run developer Dirtybit, told us that out of 30 million downloads, Asia represents 25 percent, with Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Singapore claiming the top three spots in Asia. Beside English, Fun Run is available in many Asian languages including Chinese, Arabic, and Japanese. Its localization success is well documented here.

Fun Run connects up to four players for a fun run and the first to reach the finishing line wins. But your foes aren’t gonna make it easy for you as they try to sabotage your advances with traps, flying saws, and lightning strikes. The game is insanely easy to pick up and is very addictive once you and your group of friends are on it. Whether you are waiting for a bus or for a movie to start, Fun Run fills the gap.

When asked why Fun Run is so popular, Aurora believes that the mechanisms of the game play a huge role in its success. Its multiplayer and competitiveness encourage Fun Run gamers to pull in friends to download and compete.

Plus, the game concept is unique in the app store. Rather than making another card battle or tower defense game, the Dirtybit team got inspired by what they really enjoyed playing in the past. Dirtybit’s official blog has the low-down on how Fun Run got started:

One cold January morning in Trondheim, Norway, we started brainstorming about what the next game from Dirtybit should be like. The Apple App Store and Google Play already had thousands of games and it was hard to come up with an unique idea that didn’t already exist.

We started talking about what games we enjoyed when we were kids: Games like Zelda, Super Mario, Sonic, and GoldenEye came up, but the one that really stood out was the good old Mario Kart Race played with our friends. We did some research and couldn’t find any games that provided the same joy as we remembered.

Dirtybit monetizes Fun Run by selling virtual items. Runners are able to buy new animal characters for their run and other accessories such as shoes and caps. But if you are good enough to win games, you should earn enough virtual coins to exchange for these items.

Whether or not there will be a Fun Run 2 is still anyone’s guess. But I being an Asian, I was curious to find out if Fun Run will soon have some items localized for Asians. Aurora’s reply was:

In order to localize the items we would like for you to tell us what you would prefer and we’ll consider it. 🙂

Who is in for a merlion running character?