SuperData: $10 billion was spent on digital versions of games in March

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
The current $10 billion is a record amount for March,” the document says.

In the same place, the situation with the coronavirus is called the reason for the growth. Due to self-isolation, people in March more often began to turn to games as a source of entertainment. As a result, sales have grown significantly:

• revenue from premium games for consoles increased by 64% on a monthly basis — from $883 million to $1.5 billion;
• revenue from premium PC games in March also jumped relative to February, but by 56% — from $362 million to $567 million;
• revenue from mobile games showed a less impressive growth of 15%, amounting to $ 5.7 billion (there were some incidents: Pokémon GO, previously designed for playing outside the home, developed $ 111 million during the emergency, 18% more than a month earlier).

What SuperData highlighted

• The best- selling title of the month was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In one month, 5 million digital copies of the game were purchased. This is a record. Previously, no game in the history of consoles has diverged in numbers in such a circulation for a month. This is more than Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 showed in 2018 and exceeds the total sales of Super Smash Bros. Ultimat e and Pokémon Sword and Shield in the debut months for the games.

• Call of Duty: Warzone has a unique position in the market. On the one hand, it is an additional mode of premium Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. On the other hand, it simultaneously spreads as a free-play game. In any case, the Warzone and Modern Warfare metrics count together. And so, according to the data obtained by SupeData, after the release Warzone Call of Duty: Modern Warfare experienced a 159% increase in the active monthly audience. In total, 62.7 million people played the game in March.
• Digital sales of Doom Eternal in March amounted to 3 million — three times more than the circulation of Doom sold in the first month (2016). This is a success, but analysts say that the game will not have a long tail of sales, because, firstly, the game is focused on a single passage, and secondly, it does not have the opportunity to buy additional content for real money.
• During the first month of sales, Half-Life: Alyx sold 860 thousand copies. In total, the game earned about $ 40.7 million. According to SuperData, by AAA standards – an average result, but from the point of view of the VR market — a tremendous success.  By the way, for the first time in the history of the VR project entered the top 10 best-selling games for personal computers.

Also on the topic:

• SuperData: $9.2 billion was spent on digital versions of games in FebruarySuperData: In January, players spent $9.4 billion on digital versions of games
• SuperData: in December, the digital gaming market earned $9.8 billion
• Is there any news?