The PC ruled the 2015 digital market with the highest grossing game and largest top 10 revenue

midian182

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When it comes to digital games, the PC is still king. A new report from SuperData Research shows that the worldwide market was up 8 percent last year, generating $61 billion across all platforms – and the PC led the way with the highest grossing game and largest top ten earnings.

The world’s top-grossing digital game was League of Legends, which generated an incredible $1.6 billion for Tencent/Riot Games. The second highest earner was mobile game Clash of Clans with $1.3 billion. The PC took the third, fourth and fifth spot with CrossFire ($1.1 billion), Dungeon Fighter Online ($1.05 billion), and World of Warcraft ($814 million) respectively.

CrossFire and Dungeon Fighter Online might not be familiar names to everyone in the West, but they are incredibly popular in Asian markets such as South Korea and China.

While the digital games market for consoles is still relatively small – worth $4 billion annually compared to the $32 billion a year the PC generates - it did increased 34 percent last year. Its top three grossing games were Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare ($355 million), FIFA 15 ($332 million), and Grand Theft Auto V ($332 million).

Thanks to its popular console games such as COD: Advanced Warfare, Destiny, and COD: Black Ops III, as well as the acquisition of King Digital - the company behind Candy Crush Saga – Activision became the highest grossing digital publisher of 2015.

The digital market for mobile games continued to grow – up 10 percent from 2014. And while the total revenue for the top 10 digital PC games was $6.3 billion, the mobile market’s figure of $6.18 billion wasn’t far behind.

Not every aspect of the digital gaming market increased; social games dropped slightly (-0.8 percent) and subscription-based models continued to fall (-4 percent).

With around 95 percent of PC purchases now taking place digitally and downloaded console games increasing 34 percent, will there come a day when all physical titles disappear entirely and the only way to buy a game is online?

Here are the top ten grossing games in terms of digital earnings for each category in 2015.

Console

1. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Activision) -- $355 million

2. FIFA 15 (Electronic Arts) -- $332 million

3. Grand Theft Auto V (Take-Two Interactive) -- $322 million

4. Destiny (Activision) -- $291 million

5. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (Activision) -- $224 million

6. FIFA 16 (Electronic Arts) -- $212 million

7. Fallout 4 (Bethesda Softworks) $108 million

8. Star Wars Battlefront (Electronic Arts) -- $106 million

9. Madden NFL 16 (Electronic Arts) -- $76 million

10. Madden NFL 15 (Electronic Arts) -- $73 million

PC

1. League of Legends (Tencent/Riot Games) --$1.628 billion

2. CrossFire (SmileGate) -- $1.110 billion

3. Dungeon Fighter Online (Neople) -- $1.052 billion

4. World of Warcraft (Activision) -- $814 million

5. World of Tanks (Wargaming.net) -- $446 million

6. Lineage I (NCSoft Corporation) -- $339 million

7. Maplestory (Nexon) -- $253 million

8. Dota 2 (Valve Corporation) -- $238 million

9. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve Corporation) -- $221 million

10. Grand Theft Auto V (Take-Two Interactive) -- $205 million

Mobile

1. Clash of Clans (Supercell) -- $1.345 billion

2. Game of War: Fire Age (Machine Zone) -- $799 million

3. Puzzle & Dragons (Gungho Online Ent. Inc.) -- $729 million

4. Candy Crush Saga (King Digital) -- $682 million

5. MonsterStrike (Mixi) -- $674 million

6. Candy Crush Soda Saga (King Digital) -- $518 million

7. Fantasy Westward Journey (NetEase) -- $451 million

8. Colopl Rune Story (Colopl Ni Inc.) -- $356 million

9. Disney Tsum Tsum (Line Corp.) -- $326 million

10. Boom Beach (Supercell) -- $297 million

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World of warcraft is activision/blizzard not solely activision -.- I should know, I play the game xD Plus world of warcraft still only has blizzard entertainment as its logo's ;)
 
And to think not a cent of that revenue came from me.
I still only buy physical copies of games and I'm guessing most of the world does as well because most of the world still has slow internet, not that mine is the slowest, I just prefer to have a physical product.
 
I still only buy physical copies of games and I'm guessing most of the world does as well because most of the world still has slow internet, not that mine is the slowest, I just prefer to have a physical product.
It's a matter of perspective as well. I actually WON'T buy physical media anymore... even for my consoles. I don't play my consoles often, but when I get games for them they have to be digital downloadable copies or I pass on it no matter how good the deal. My game collection over the last 30+ years has grown way too large and keeping up with physical media has become a real hassle.
 
I still only buy physical copies of games and I'm guessing most of the world does as well because most of the world still has slow internet, not that mine is the slowest, I just prefer to have a physical product.
It's a matter of perspective as well. I actually WON'T buy physical media anymore... even for my consoles. I don't play my consoles often, but when I get games for them they have to be digital downloadable copies or I pass on it no matter how good the deal. My game collection over the last 30+ years has grown way too large and keeping up with physical media has become a real hassle.
I agree, the boxes and stuff we're cool, but now it's just wasted plastic and packaging that isn't useful for anything more than novelty. I have too many games left over from late 90s and early 2000 as is. I stopped buying physical media around 2009. I was considering buying the fallout 4 collectors edition, but again, it's just novelty.
 
I only buy physical copy if the game packaging is prestege or if the game might become a big hit, which apart from something like WoW (oh god the Vanilla, TBC and kind of WotLK were awesome) rarely happens.
 
1.3 billion was spent on Clash of Clans. What is this world coming to?

Hehehe... I LOVE Clash of Clans :) My 3-year-old nephew purchased $600 USD worth of gems for me last year (I got it refunded) and now I have a pretty awesome base... Still, it's insane that they make that much money from a game that can really only be played a few times a day...
 
World of Warcraft (and The Sims when they release new games) just make money hand over fist, very impressive.
 
I don't own a console so I'm only guessing here but I'm fairly sure that buying PC games online has become the norm, whereas console games are still mostly bought from shops or traded as second hand. So, while I'm happy to see the PC games dominating in a market, I remind myself that it's not a market that consoles are strong in and therefore the PC is not yet reigning supreme. Pity.
Plus I'm also shocked at the vast amounts of money spent on supposedly free mobile games. I install and play them as far as I can without spending money and then move on. Where's the challenge in buying your way to victory?
 
And to think not a cent of that revenue came from me.
I still only buy physical copies of games and I'm guessing most of the world does as well because most of the world still has slow internet, not that mine is the slowest, I just prefer to have a physical product.

You buy physical media to only have to apply digital updates?
 
World of warcraft is activision/blizzard not solely activision -.- I should know, I play the game xD Plus world of warcraft still only has blizzard entertainment as its logo's ;)

It's still Blizzard, some years ago Activision bought a parent company of Blizzard so essentially own Billizard now but they didn't make the game.
 
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