I, for one, welcome our digital overlords.
The digital gaming market generated $995 million in revenues in February, according to analyst firm SuperData. This is a 2 percent increase from the same period last year.
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“The enduring strength of a franchise like World of Warcraft is a clear indication that emphasizing retention is a more valuable strategy than merely pursuing large acquisition volume,” Joost van Dreunen, chief executive officer of SuperData, told GamesBeat. “Here we are, more than ten years later, and still we see strong numbers for a game that is beset on all sides by titles competing for mind and wallet share. It also tell us that the recent emergence of MOBAs and other free-to-play games does not spell the end of subscription-based games and, rather, that the market is now big enough to facilitate both types.”
Multiplayer online battle arenas (called MOBAs) are also contributing plenty of cash to the digital games vault. SuperData says that Valve’s Dota 2 had an impressive 1,153,407 concurrent users in February. The MOBA market, which also includes the popular League of Legends, generated $54 million in earnings in January.