Digital games market dips 3% in May

The latest review of digital sales has arrived from SuperData. Last month, gamers spent $10.2 billion on digital copies of games. This is 3 percent below the April figure.

GTA V

Mobile revenues are still growing, offsetting a decline in the console segment. Mobile games spending was up 3 percent from April. The console games dropped 27 percent. Analysts did not disclose any PC sales data for May.

Year over year, ther’s growth across segments. PC games in May generated 8 percent more YoY, mobile games — 14 percent more, console games — 23 percent more. Total digital sales grew 14 percent compared to May 2019.

This growth is down to the coronavirus pandemic and strong performance of individual titles:

• Rockstar’s GTA V saw its player count grow 245% in from April to May. This was following a free giveaway of the game on the Epic Games Store. Thanks to this, PC revenue more than doubled from in-game content;

• EGS gave away another popular game for free: Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. Its audience grew 477 percent, with PC revenue jumping 52% from April to May;

• Pokémon GO spending increased 60 percent from April. Year over year, the game’s revenue rose 45 percent. Due to the pandemic, Niantic had to adjust the mechanics so that you could catch Pokémon at home;

• Tencent’s Peacekeeper Elite was at its all-time high, which made it “the highest-earning game overal,” according to SuperData.” It is the Chinese version of PUBG Mobile, and in May, it accounted for 53 percent of the total earnings of PUBG developers. The international version is responsible for the remaining 47 percent;

• CS: GO saw both its revenue and audience decrease. The game’ stats grew for several months, but in May the game’s revenue decreased by 9 percent, and the number of players — by 6 percent. SuperData links this to the release of Valorant from Riot Games.