The sales figures for the crucial month of December 2017 are here. While the star of Destiny 2 slowly fades, the stars of Fortnite and PUBG continue to rise. But another game dominates the Christmas business: Call of Duty WW2.
Every month, the analysis firm SuperData releases its market research figures. These are top 10 lists of the games that generated the most revenue digitally in a month. The numbers apply worldwide.
Digital gaming market grows by one-sixth
Overall, the digital video game market grew by 17% in December 2017 compared to 2016. The industry is booming.
There are hardly any surprises. Trends that could be observed throughout the year continue.
The premium AAA games on PC and consoles have turned up. Mobile is also gaining momentum. Social games and subscription games are declining.
The big winners of December 2017
- One of the big winners in December is Call of Duty: WW2. It secured 1st place among console titles. And that’s not all. In terms of digital sales, CoD: WW2 had the best quarter for consoles of all time. No console game has generated more revenue in a quarter than the latest title from CoD. This fits the spirit of the times: More and more games are being purchased digitally for consoles.
- A surprise is Grand Theft Auto V. The oldie has achieved the best revenue quarter years after its release. GTA V Online breaks its record from June 2017 and now has earned more in one month than ever before.
- Throughout the year, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has been winning – and this trend continues in December. Players on Xbox One eagerly awaited the release and purchased 2 million digital units of PUBG. The “clones” of PUBG also count among the winners. Mobile games like Knives Out and Rules of Survival have launched successfully.
Fortnite: Battle Royale and PUBG successful on PC and consoles
- Fortnite Battle Royale generated 89 million US dollars digitally in December 2017 and keeps pace with PUBG in growth. This is a tremendous success on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. According to Superdata, the player base is evenly distributed here.
- PUBG and Fortnite are also the only games from the top 10 on consoles that are also found among the PC games. The usual suspects from Asia, such as LoL, WoW, World of Tanks, and other familiar faces still dominate there.
Critical voices for Destiny 2 – Black eye for Battlefront
In contrast, Superdata has critical voices for Destiny 2. They say that the DLC “Curse of Osiris” had no significant impact on the game.
Both the digital revenue figures and the monthly active users remained the same in December 2017 compared to November. This may be because many purchased Curse of Osiris not in December, but months ago as part of a special edition.
This is disappointing for Destiny 2: Normally, one expects an increase in the number of monthly active users with a DLC release and not a flat line. At least, SuperData did not see a decline here.
Interestingly, the title “Star Wars Battlefront 2” is impressively holding 4th place among consoles. This is achieved by Star Wars without any additional revenue source. The planned microtransactions had to be removed from the game by Electronic Arts after fan protests.
That was the last month of 2017 – we forecast these trends for 2018:
