The previous SuperData revenue report showed Dark Souls III as the biggest game for April. However, the May 2016 worldwide digital game sales have made room for a new champion: the multiplayer shooter, Overwatch. The competitive game has accounted for $269 million in earnings across both PC and console. In addition, the game is currently the fifth most commonly broadcast title across livestreaming platforms, according to SuperData CEO Joost van Dreunen.
Overwatch has also done suitable business with “a hefty quantity of vanity items, including skins and graffiti tags.” This is on top of the initial $60 price of the game. The shooter also had no trouble running loops around its nearest competitor, 2K Games’ Battleborn, which managed to only earn about $11 million for the month of May. While those are still reasonable earnings, it was nowhere near Overwatch‘s numbers.
Overall, the digital games market showed an increase of 11 percent year-over-year, earning an estimated $6 billion for the month of May—primarily due to the success of Overwatch. Mobile gaming took a slight drop, down from the almost $3 billion in monthly sales noted back in February, to around $2.6 billion, which is still a nine percent increase from 2015.
While Overwatch may be a noted success story, it’s not the only game that did well for the month. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End did great business for Sony, scoring $56 million for the month and pushing past Call of Duty: Black Ops III as the highest earning console title in May. The game sold almost six times more digital copies at launch than its predecessor, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, when it released last October, according to van Dreunen.
In addition, the report showed that multiplayer gaming is a major part of console gaming, with the market “on track to reach $17.4 billion in revenues, in part driven by consoles now offering cross-platform gameplay.” While not a lot of titles have embraced this opportunity yet (mainly Rocket League), many developers are looking into the option.
Van Dreunen was also made note of Facebook’s interest in the gaming video content market, particularly with its deal with Activision Blizzard and Overwatch. “Facebook’s entry into the space may serve as a catalyst for competitive gaming, which is a major content category across livestreaming channels, and on track to earn $892 million this year.”
