In 2016, the total digital revenues of all games amounted to $91 billion. Most of the amount came from games for mobile platforms.
This was stated by SuperData in its final report for 2016. It took into account only the money that the games earned from online sales, not including the results from retail.
Mobile market
In twelve months, mobile games have earned $40.6 billion. Monster Strike ($1.3 billion) and Clash of Clans ($1.2 billion) earned the most money. Clash Royale, which earned $197 million in March alone, is in third place at the end of the year.
At the same time, Pokémon GO, released in the summer of 2016, managed to raise $ 788 million. The game also helped achieve Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon record-breaking launch sales in November (both games were released on the Nintendo 3DS).
The total average MAU of all gaming projects on mobile was 2.6 billion.
Asia earned more than half of the amount to the mobile games market – $24.9 billion.
Freeplay PC Games Market
Both the total revenue and the MAU of free-play games for PC are significantly less than similar parameters for mobile. Fritupley projects for personal computers earned $18.6 billion. Their combined MAU is 755 million .
The top title for the year was League of Legends, which earned $ 1.7 billion. In second place – suddenly – sprite brawler Dungeon Fighter Online (Challenge, most likely in the official dock – a typo) from Nexon with $ 1.1 billion. Third place for the Chinese shooter Crossfire. He also has $1.1 billion.
The fritupley MMO accounts for 92% of the users of the entire MMO market and 87% of the segment’s revenue.
As in the case of mobile, most of the market revenue is generated by the Asian region. Of the $18.6 billion, $12.5 is accounted for by him.
Digital market for premium PC and Console games
Excluding retail, console games earned $6.6 billion in 2016. The segment’s MAU was 196 million. The top selling title here was the shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops III – $591.1 million.
The digital PC premium earned less than $5.4 billion for the current year. And its MAU also turned out to be less than the console one – 154 million. The highest-grossing game on desktops was Overwatch, which earned $585.6 million.
Note that in the Top 5 highest-grossing console games, none earned less than $200 million. On the PC, projects that have not earned even $ 100 million in a year are already coming from the third place.
A large share of console game sales came from the United States – $2.9 billion, and most PC game sales to Europe – $2.7 billion.
Esports Market
SuperData estimated that in 2016, the revenues of the esports market amounted to $0.9 billion.
Most of the money went to Asia, but here the gap between the United States and Europe is relatively small.
But Asia is significantly ahead of other regions in terms of the number of viewers. Of the 213.3 million people watching esports, 125 million live in Asia.
Gaming Video Market
In 2016, $4.4 billion was earned from watching video related to games. Of these, $1.6 billion – on YouTube, $ 1.9 billion – on Twitch.
Virtual Reality Market
The virtual reality market managed to earn $2.7 billion in a year. The MAU of all virtual reality platforms amounted to 16 million in 2016.
The leader in the supply of virtual reality devices was Google with its 88.4 million cardboard headsets. From non-mobile glasses, Sony is the leader in sales to stores. She threw 745 thousand points on the market.
Superdata positions the data as totals for the year, but the company collected them only from January to November 2016 inclusive.
A source: SuperData