Consumers have embraced digital gaming, and that helped the market grow at a double-digit rate in May.
Gamers in the United States spent $979 million on digital mobile, PC, and social releases, according to intelligence firm SuperData Research. That’s up 11 percent year-over-year, which is a significant growth spurt at a time of year when people have typically spent less on gaming. SuperData thinks that people are just more willing to spend their cash on digital than ever before because the total number of gamers isn’t necessarily growing at the same rate as the total revenues.
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Digital console games grew by 17 percent year-over-year in May. That’s at least partially due to more people on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 systems with larger hard drives and better digital-game ecosystems. The release of The Witcher 3 late in the month likely also had something to do with it. PC digital gaming also continued growing with a 12 percent year-over-year increase during last month.
“May digital PC revenue was $203 million,” said van Dreunen. “May digital console revenue reached $67 million. Ongoing high revenues from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Grand Theft Auto V contributed to the year-over-year increases in the digital console and PC markets. CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt saw strong digital sales as well, becoming the third highest-grossing digital console and PC game of May despite only being available for purchase during the later part of the month.”