SuperData digital games market report for July 2018

Superdata have released their report on the digital games market for July 2018. Spending on digital games for the month was $8.2 billion, which is up by 3 percent year-on-year. The growth in overall spending has been driven by by consoles mostly, which Superdata believe can be attributed to Fortnite, which boosted full game downloads.

Year-on-year the premium PC segment was the weakest in July 2018. The segment was down by 14 percent. With more core PC titles moving over to consoles, where they are more accessible to a wider number of gamers, it could be that this is down to player preference on platforms.

Superdata say in their report that Fortnite’s peak may well be behind it. The game’s revenue has increased by only 27 percent from the previous month. It seems that even though Epic released the Battle Pass for the latest Season 5, part way through July it wasn’t enough to maintain the game’s momentum.

The introduction of a new hero in Overwatch has driven monthly active users up during July, but this hasn’t led to more player spending. Revenue generated from in-game purchases on consumables was down both compared to June and year-on-year.

Grand Theft Auto Online had its second best month ever in July 2018, with the best being December 2017, thanks to the After Hours update. The new content drove in-game sales on new items for players to use or customize their characters and assets with. Rockstar Games have yet to announce the release date for Red Dead Redemption 2’s online mode, but it’s sure to have an impact on the active monthly players in Grand Theft Auto Online.

Finally, Superdata reported that No Man’s Sky had the best month since launch in July 2018. After the launch of No Man’s Sky NEXT, an update that completely revamped the game, it generated $24 million across all platforms. The player base increase tenfold thanks to the launch of this update as well, which launched in conjunction with the Xbox One version. While Hello Games say that the game still has a long way to go before it’s finished, this is the realization of the vision they had for the title.