Worldwide digital games market report for June 2019

In SuperData’s latest report on the worldwide digital games market, they cover the highlights for June 2019.

During June 2019 worldwide digital revenue grew to $9.2 billion, an increase of 2 percent year-on-year. Mobile grew by 7 percent year-on-year, which has made up for the console and PC segments, both of which underperformed for the month. Console revenue was down by 2 percent year-on-year, and PC revenue was down by 9 percent year-on-year.

As interest in Fortnite continues to decline, as well as other titles such as Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto Online, Madden, and Overwatch, in-game spending revenue heads the same way. Some believe that this is an indication of how short-lived the battle royale phenomenon will be, while others think that it could have something to do with the end of the current console generation drawing in.

SuperData estimates that Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled sold 552,000 digital units worldwide during June, even though it launched towards the end of the month on the 21st of June. This makes for the second-best launch month of any console racing game, behind only the 2018 Ubisoft release, The Crew 2. It’s thought that above average download rates for the year-to-date aided Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, but the continued popularity of the franchise, as was seen with Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy, must also have helped.

Rainbow Six Siege saw the best month for monthly active users in the game’s history in June. This month was also the sixth-best for in-game spending on the title. The game’s latest update, Operation Phantom Sight, definitely helped this month, with many quality of life updates bringing the game to a level that all players are exceedingly happy with. Total in-game revenue for the month for the game topped $36.8 million over consoles and PC, which is up by 50 percent from May, and 9 percent year-on-year.

Activision Blizzard’s MOBA shooter title, Overwatch, has become the 64th game in history to generate $1 billion in in-game spending alone. The title is the sixth to reach this milestone for Activision Blizzard, behind World of Warcraft, Destiny, Hearthstone, Candy Crush, and Call of Duty.

Publishers experimented more with discounts on Triple A titles this month, as the Free-to-Play model for games becomes more commonplace, and acceptable with consumers. Both EA and Take-Two Interactive brought The Sims 4 and NBA 2K19 down to under $5, generating huge sales spikes. Since both titles offer a huge amount of add-on content, the publishers must be confident that they’ll benefit from sales here to make up for the heavy discounts.