Digital market jumps 16% in July - Superdata
Grand Theft Auto V, Call of Duty ride high as worldwide digital game revenues grow to $7.8 billion
The global games market saw growing digital revenues once again last month. According to the latest report from Superdata, July's overall digital spend on gaming jumped 16% year-over-year to $7.8 billion.
That growth was pushed primarily by free-to-play MMOs (up 29%), console (up 21%), and mobile games (up 17%), with premium PC games seeing a more modest 8% jump year-over-year. The only two corners of the industry to shrink during the month were pay-to-play MMOs (down 2%), and social games (down 6%).
As for which titles performed best, the console side saw Grand Theft Auto V on top once again. While the game's Grand Theft Auto Online component was down a bit from its all-time high in June, it was still up year-over-year and topped the console digital revenue charts. Activision Blizzard also saw a strong month, with four games in the console top 10, including three different Call of Duty titles: Black Ops III, Infinite Warfare, and the recently released stand-alone version of Modern Warfare Remastered.
On the PC side, Superdata noted that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continued its rise with another 1.6 million copies sold in July and 4.9 million monthly active users, moving up one notch to sixth place on the top 10. Over on mobile, Pokemon GO celebrated its first anniversary with its best monthly performance of 2017, even though it didn't quite measure up to the windfall of its July 2016 launch.
