Mobile games brought in $61.3 billion in revenue in 2018: report

Mobile games brought in more than half of the overall worldwide digital games revenue in 2018, according to a report from gaming analytics firm SuperData.

Of the $109.8 billion in total revenue generated by digital games, mobile accounted for $61.3 billion, says SuperData. PC followed with $35.7 billion while consoles came in third at $12.7 billion.

Unsurprisingly, free-to-play games were the dominant business model, accounting for a total of 80 percent of total digital games revenue in 2018.

According to SuperData, these were the top 10 free-to-play games by revenue in 2018:

1) Fortnite (Epic Games) — $2.4 billion
2. Dungeon Fighter Online (Nexon) — $1.5 billion
3. League of Legends (Riot Games, Tencent) — $1.4 billion
4. Pokemon GO (Niantic) — $1.3 billion
5. Crossfire (Neowiz Games) — $1.3 billion
6. Honour of Kings (Tencent) — $1.3 billion
7. Fate/Grand Order (Aniplex) — $1.2 billion
8. Candy Crush Saga (King, Activision Blizzard) — $1.1 billion
9. Monster Strike (Mixi) — $1 billion
10. Clash Royale (Supercell, Tencent) — $0.9 billion

Notably, several of these games are only available on mobile devices — Pokémon Go, Fate/Grand Order, Honour of Kings (known as Arena of Valor in western markets), Monster Strike and Clash Royale. Fortnite, meanwhile, is available on mobile, consoles and PC.

Meanwhile, these are the top 10 premium games by revenue in 2018, according to SuperData:

1. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (Bluehole) — $1.028 billion
2. FIFA 18 (Electronic Arts) — $790 million
3. Grand Theft Auto V (Take-Two Interactive) — $628 million
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII (Activision Blizzard) — $612 million
5. Red Dead Redemption 2 (Take-Two Interactive) — $516 million
6. Call of Duty: WWII (Activision Blizzard) — $506 million
7. FIFA 19 (Electronic Arts) — $482 million
8. Monster Hunter: World (Capcom) — $467 million
9. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft) — $440 million
10. Overwatch (Activision Blizzard) — $429 million

Of these games, only PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is available on mobile, in addition to PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

However, it’s worth noting that four of the other games have Canadian connections. FIFA 18 and 19 were both developed by EA Vancouver and Rainbow Six Siege was made by Ubisoft Montreal.

Finally, Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, while developed by longtime Santa Monica-based Black Ops studio Treyarch, was ported to PC with the assistance of Quebec City’s Beenox.

SuperData predicts that digital game revenue will increase by the billions in 2019 thanks in part to the rise of subscription services. Some of the most notable services include Microsoft’s Netflix-like Game Pass, which offers unlimited access to a library of over 100 games, and EA’s Origin Access Premier, which provides early access and various discounts to the publisher’s games.

Source: SuperData