Idle vs Sorting: Why 4 App Charts Look Nothing Alike
On September 3 I pulled the free games chart in four countries at the same moment. Not one of the four number ones was the same game.
If you pick games off the top of the chart, the game you get depends entirely on which country's chart you are looking at. On September 3, 2026 I pulled the App Store free games chart in Korea, the US, Japan and Taiwan at the same moment and lined them up. No two countries had the same number one.
This post shows those four rows as they were, gives three reasons they diverge, and ends with what to actually look at when you read a chart. The third reason is the one that changes how you use them.
The four rows, same day
- Korea: Archer Castle (idle RPG) · Aqualand: Crazy Survival · a gacha-machine idle RPG · Sword & Frontier · Tiniping Magic Match
- US: Smash Fest · Block Out (color sort) · Meowdoku (cat sudoku) · Magic Sort · Bus Traffic Fever
- Japan: Meowdoku · 波乱水世界 · Bus Traffic Fever · a kanji-decomposition puzzle · Smash Fest
- Taiwan: 嘎嘎特攻 · 瘋狂水世界 · 塔塔冒險隊 · Meowdoku · 時尚百貨城
Scan the image row by row and the difference is visible before you read a single title. Korea's row is character art and progression games. The US row is blocks, bottles and cups.
Reason 1: each country is fluent in a different genre
Korea has "idle RPG" written into the titles at #1 and #3 — Archer Castle and the gacha-machine game. Number two is a survival title, so the top three are not one genre. But across all four top-fives there are only two idle cells, and both of them sit in the Korean row.
Search Google Play in Korean for idle games and you get Fortress Saga, Cat Hero, a knight-cat squad game, a Maple idler and a rock-with-a-face adventure, one after another. Few markets have that much supply stacked into one genre.
The US is dominated by sorting. Four of the top five are games about arranging or classifying something. Sort blocks by color, pour liquids between bottles, fill in numbers. What is being sold is the feeling of things becoming tidy, not growth or combat.
Japan puts its own language inside the puzzle. Number one is a cat sudoku; number four decomposes kanji. The rules themselves are local.
Taiwan leans action and collection. Its number one and number three are both about gathering characters and pushing forward.
One thing stands out. Meowdoku is #1 in Japan, #3 in the US and #4 in Taiwan, and it is nowhere in Korea's top 10. A game simultaneously charting in three countries skipped exactly one. In the image, the black-and-white cat is missing from the Korean row alone.
Reason 2: the same game enters under different names
This is the trap when you compare charts across countries. Find the icon of a man fishing from a raft. It sits at number two in Korea, number two in Japan and number two in Taiwan.
All three names differ. Aqualand: Crazy Survival in Korea, 波乱水世界 in Japan, 瘋狂水世界 in Taiwan. The store listings give the same publisher for all three: Hong Kong Just Game Technology Limited.
So it is not three different games sitting at number two. It is one game holding number two in three countries at once. Counting by title hides that completely. When you read a foreign chart, read the icon and the developer, not just the name.
Reason 3: Korea's chart moves fastest
Here is the practical part. I compared yesterday's top ten against today's.
- Korea: exactly one game kept its slot. Eight moved and one new title entered. Archer Castle went from #9 to #1 in a single day. Rogue W fell from #3 to #8, and a new title entered at #4.
- US: 8 held their exact position. Only first and third traded places.
- Taiwan: 4 held. The top four were unchanged across both days.
- Japan: 3 held.
In Korea, "today's number one" is close to one-day information. A game that was ninth yesterday and first today did not become a better game overnight; installs concentrated between yesterday and today. Conversely, a game that holds its slot for days in Taiwan is telling you something by holding it.
So how should you read a chart
- Look at three days, not one. Three consecutive days near the top is performance. A single-day jump is an ad budget.
- Read the icon and the developer. Different names can be the same game. The fisherman above is the proof.
- Do not read only your own country. A game charting for weeks in Japan and the US but missing at home may simply not have run marketing there yet.
We are inside the idle pile too
The studio writing this makes an idle game. It is called KickCat, and it is about a cowardly cat that puts on a helmet and kicks a ball with its eyes shut. Every enemy across 300 stages is a dog. Shiba Inus, schnauzers and corgis block the way with shields instead of weapons.
Both idle cells across four countries being Korean means, from the building side, that the competition is concentrated in one market. So we had to pick one thing to do differently. We put a hard 100-pull pity on the gacha and made the upgrade currency keep accruing while the app is closed. Where a non-paying player stalls is at least a clear question with a clear answer.
The cost is that the idle vault fills in 12 hours. Open the game once a day and you throw away the overflow. Better to know that going in.
If you want the detail, the game guide covers the skills and the ball list, and the dogs are catalogued in the bestiary. It installs from Google Play.
Rankings here are the App Store free games charts pulled in four countries at the same moment on September 3, 2026. App icons come from the App Store and Google Play listings and belong to their respective publishers.
FAQ
Why do App Store charts differ by country
Because a chart counts downloads that actually happened in that country. Genre familiarity, which titles are released there, and where ad money was spent all differ, so the result differs.
Can a game charting abroad be unavailable in my country
Yes. Release territories are set per country and often differ. If it does not appear in your local store search, it has not launched there.
Does chart position say anything about quality
Not directly. Position follows download volume, and download volume often follows marketing. How many days a game holds its position is the better signal.
Pull the same four rows tomorrow and some of them will have moved again. The Korean row especially.