Global Digital Games Revenue Up 12% in 2020

January 26, 2021

SuperData Global Digital Games Revenue in 2020 Jan2021The digital games and interactive media industry grew by 12% year-over-year in 2020, representing revenue of $139.9 billion, according to new figures [download page] from SuperData. Here’s a roundup of the report’s insights into gaming in 2020, as well as the industry’s projected outlook for 2021.

Data in the report shows that digital games revenue also grew by 12% year-over-year (y-o-y), to $126.6 billion, of which mobile accounted for the largest share ($73.8 billion). Trailing distantly in revenues were free-to-play PC ($22.7 billion), premium console ($17.8 billion), premium PC ($6.7 billion), pay-to-play PC ($3.7 billion) and free-to-play console ($1.8 billion).

The report highlights the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these numbers, with game earnings being up by just 6% y-o-y in January and February but rising to 14% growth for the rest of the year. This comes as close to one-third of gamers reported spending more time playing video games than they did in 2019.

Free-to-Play

Total free-to-play revenue stood at $98.4 billion in 2020, with mobile accounting for the majority of this ($73.8 billion). Revenue for free-to-play is expected to grow to $101.3 billion this year.

Honor of Kings from Tencent topped the revenue charts in 2020 as the leading title, bringing in $2.45 billion of revenue, closely followed by fellow Tencent game Peacekeeper Elite ($2.32 billion).

Premium

Next to free-to-play, the premium market looks slightly different. Despite total premium games revenue rising from $19.2 billion in 2019 to $24.5 billion in 2020, total premium games revenue is projected to decline to $21.4 billion in 2021. Nonetheless, 2020’s 28% jump in premium console earnings was the largest of any gaming segment measured.

In this market, it was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare by Activision Blizzard that took the top spot for premium title revenue ($1.9 billion), followed by FIFA 20 at $1.1 billion.

Read the report in full here.

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