December SuperData – Fortnite high, Battlefield 5 low

December turned out very successful for Fortnite.

SuperData analytics group released a report concerning digital distribution results on the global video games market in December 2018. This category, together with micropayments and subscriptions, generated 9 billion dollars. This is a decrease of 2% compared to December 2017.

The end of the year was especially good for Fortnite, for which December proved to be the best month in history. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, which found 2.3 million additional buyers was hence also very successful. Beyond that, the Christmas promotions for The Sims 4 on consoles and PC increased the number of copies sold significantly compared to the previous year. However, revenues from DLCs decreased by 10%.

The transition to a free-to-play model turned out a great move for CS:GO.

The biggest bestseller on consoles proved to be Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, whose digital sales are estimated at around 2.49 million copies, which is a record figure for Nintendo Switch. On the other hand, Battlefield V is doing rather poorly; the game was not able to win a place in the top ten console games with the highest digital revenues.

People at Valve can celebrate. The conversion of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to free-to-play turned out to be a big success and allowed to get the greatest number of monthly active users in the history of the franchise. It is estimated that by the end of the year, the free version of the game generated approx. 49 million dollars of revenue.

Traditionally, the most interesting element of the SuperData report were lists of the most popular games of December. When analyzing them, keep in mind that all of the following lists are set according to revenue, not the number of copies purchased or apps downloaded.

PC

Consoles

Mobile

1. SuperData – official website