Digital market grows seven per cent in March

SuperData has said that the global digital video games market in March was up seven per cent year-on-year, reaching $8bn.

Within this, mobile grew 13 per cent, while non free-to-play games fell by six per cent.

In the US, digital revenues rocketed 15 per cent year-on-year, reaching $1.46bn, while digital console revenue jumped 17 per cent. Mobile was up 21 per cent and F2P 12 per cent.

On PC, Overwatch dipped below Counter Strike: Global Offensive for the first time since Blizzard’s successful competitive shooter launched. On console, meanwhile, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is delivering the good for Ubisoft in both Western and Eastern markets. Digital sales reached 800k on console and 400k on PC at launch.

Mass Effect: Andromeda, however, managed only marginal growth over 2012’s Mass Effect 3, despite the large shift to digital that has occurred in the interim. Digital PC sales are estimated to be somewhere under 349k.

Interestingly, Destiny players continue to be the biggest spenders within that particular segment. Destiny microtransaction conversion stands at 8.5 per cent compared to 3.3 per cent with Battlefield 1, with players of Bungie’s shooter spending an average of $4.5 more per month.

Call of Duty players are also twice as likely to pay for microtransactions as Battlefield 1 players.

There’s good news for Hearthstone, whose March mobile revenue doubled compared to the previous month, although it’s still far short of its December peak. This success was spurred by the release of a new content pack.

It was reported earlier this week that EA’s FIFA 17 was the highest grossing console game digitally in the UK last month. SuperData’s March 2017 chart has the football sim way out front in the listings, with digital revenues of 7.38m.

Next up wasthe current physical charts No.1, Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands, with digital console revenues of 4.53m. This was just ahead of EA shooter Battlefield 1, which reached 4.21m.