Digital gaming just had its best revenue month ever in November
SuperData: Digital spending was up 15% worldwide to $11.5 billion; new World of Warcraft expansion drove PC spending record
Digital games spending set a new monthly record in November, rising 15% year-over-year to $11.5 billion globally.
According to SuperData's monthly digital spending report, this was driven by a 9% rise in mobile spending, but also a 22% increase in PC spending to reach a new record high, largely driven by the launch of World of Warcraft's Shadowlands expansion.
Console earnings were also up 24% for the month, though this was not a new record, and spending was likely held back by a limited supply of next-gen consoles prompting those who would otherwise purchase new games to hit pause on spending until they could get ahold of the new hardware.
In software, World of Warcraft rose to No.1 on PC, up from No.5 in October again driven by its new Shadowlands expansion. The game saw its highest monthly revenue since 2008 and highest player numbers since 2010, with earnings up 50% from Battle for Azeroth's launch and player counts up 34%.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla also reached No.8 in its debut month, pushing Valorant out of the top 10 and selling 1.7 million digital units -- 50% more than Odyssey did at its launch.
However, its in-game revenue was down 62% from Odyssey despite overall revenue being up 23%, likely due to a lack of a paid experience booster being sold at launch.
On console, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War debuted at No.1, having sold 5.7 million digital units in its launch month -- up 7% from the launch month of prior record-holder Black Ops 4.
Additionally, Modern Warfare (at No.9 on console and No.10 on PC) had 2.7 times as many players as Cold War in November, largely thanks to Warzone.
Though it didn't break the top 10, Spider-Man: Miles Morales sold 663,000 units across both PS4 and PS5 in November -- not touching the original Spider-Man's launch month digital sales of 2.2 million, though this is likely because it's not been billed as a full sequel.
And though also not breaching the top 10, Among Us had around half a billion MAUs for November -- though its earnings were not high due to it having fairly low monetization.
On mobile, Genshin Impact dropped from No.2 last month to No.6, and Free Fire replaced Pokémon Go at No.1.
