The Corona crisis is leading to new record revenues in the video game industry. Digital games are booming like never before. We show you the big winners in global digital revenues for March 2020, according to data from SuperData.
Source of the numbers: The analysts at SuperData investigated the revenues of the video game industry and created a ranking of the highest-grossing games.
Especially now during the Corona crisis, business is booming, according to SuperData. Spending on digital games has reached a record high.
It should be noted that SuperData uses its own dataset: These are not official revenue figures from the publishers. For example, Epic Games even attacked the market researchers in February 2020.
Animal Crossing and CoD Modern Warfare are the winners
The numbers show: According to SuperData, spending on digital games amounts to 10 billion dollars, which is higher than ever before. In March 2019, this figure was 9 billion dollars, for example.
Revenues from consoles rose by 64% to 1.5 billion dollars and from PC by 56% to 567 million dollars. The reason for the increase is likely the Corona crisis, as many people around the world are urged to stay at home.
In Italy, due to games like Fortnite or Modern Warfare, the internet infrastructure was quite strained.
It is also noticeable that mobile games are very popular to play at home. There was a 15% increase in revenue in this sector. Alone, Pokémon GO, an AR game that normally requires you to go outside, earned 18% more than the previous month. It seems that mobile games also provide enough fun at home.
The big winners on Xbox One, PS4, and Switch: In March, the Switch game Animal Crossing dominated console games. A total of 5 million digital units were sold, more than any other console game in history.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare also experienced a significant boost. 159% more players than the previous month engaged in Modern Warfare. The main reason for this is the new Battle Royale Warzone, which was released in March. It is free and likely became interesting for many people who stayed at home.
Continuing to perform well on consoles are games like FIFA 20, Fortnite, or Rainbow Six Siege.
The most successful games on PC: The PC sector is dominated by MMOs and MMORPGs from Asia. Games like Dungeon Fighter Online and Crossfire are particularly popular in eastern countries.
Successful in western countries is, for instance, Doom Eternal. The shooter was released in March and had three times as many players at launch on Steam as its predecessor. Doom Eternal is also ranked 4th among consoles in March.
Borderlands 3 also returns to the top 10 among PC games. The reason for this is probably the release of the loot shooter on Steam. This likely brought a significant amount of revenue to the developers.
How are mobile games doing? The highest-grossing mobile game in March was Honour of Kings, an unofficial mobile version of League of Legends. The game is particularly popular in Asia and is therefore ranked 1st. Games like Gardenscapes and Candy Crush Saga are also popular in Europe, landing in 2nd and 3rd place.
Pokémon GO managed to reach 5th place, performing better than in February. The reason for this may be numerous adjustments that make the AR game easier to play from home.
