Nielsen closing its SuperData gaming department

Data analytics company Nielsen is closing its SuperData gaming department as a stand-alone entity. The company didn’t say why, but experts suggest that the gaming data market is overcrowded.

The news was announced yesterday, March 31, by The Esport Observer. According to the media outlet, Nielsen has informed customers and employees of the division about its imminent closure. The company also confirmed these plans in a commentary for Sports Business Journal.

At the same time, the company is not giving up on video games analytics. However, moving forward, the company will integrate its games-related products into Nielsen Sports as an “additional feature.” Nielsen Sports tracks data about the global sports audience, with Gaming and Esports being parts of the service.

“We have decided to wind down SuperData business operations. Our focus going forward will be to deliver games-related services and insights as added features and capabilities to core Nielsen Sports products and services,” a Nielsen spokesman told Sports Business Journal.

It is unknown how many people work at SuperData, or how many of them will remain with Nielsen following the closure.

It is also unclear why the decision was made to close one of the few services that monitors the situation with game sales across the globe on a monthly basis. However, experts are suggesting that the market for game data is overcrowded. Moreover, the esports industry isn’t growing as fast as Nielsen expected. SuperData was founded in 2009. 9 years later, in 2018, it was acquired by Nielsen. The terms of the deal were not announced. Following the acquisition, SuperData was expected to concentrate on the esports market. At the time of the closure, according to SuperData itself, the service tracked the monthly spending of 160 million players worldwide.