PC digital sales outpace mobile, reaching $6.1 billion in 2015

News
By
published

Azir, League of Legends

Market research firm Superdata says the digital games market in 2015 was worth $61 billion across all platforms, an increase of eight percent over 2014. Digital sales on consoles saw the greatest year-over-year jump at 34 percent, but the big dog in the digital pack was none other than League of Legends, with 2015 revenues of $1.6 billion dollars.

Number two on the overall list is the mobile game Clash of Clans, which pulled in a very impressive $1.3 billion over the year. But the PC rounds out the top five with Smilegate's Crossfire (which will soon be brought to the West by Starbreeze) at $1.1 billion, Dungeon Fighter Online from Neople at $1.05 billion, and the ancient, immortal World of Warcraft, which in its 11th year of existence earned $814 million dollars.

Perhaps unexpectedly, given the rise of mobile gaming, the report also states that the top ten PC games actually pull in more money than the top ten mobile games, with $6.3 billion earned on PC compared to $6.1 billion on mobile. The overall gap in market value is even wider.

“PC-based gaming—consisting of free-to-play MMOs, subscription-based games like World of Warcraft, social games and PC downloadable games—earns over $32 billion annually, well above the $25.1 billion generated by mobile games,” the report states. “Three of the year’s top five digital PC games (Grand Theft Auto V, Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3) were released in 2015, indicating that PC gamers have made significant progress transitioning to purchasing games digitally.”

The full list of top-grossing PC games in 2015, in millions:

  1. League of Legends (Tencent/Riot Games): $1,628
  2. CrossFire (SmileGate): $1,110
  3. Dungeon Fighter Online (Neople): $1,052
  4. World of Warcraft (Activision Blizzard): $814
  5. World of Tanks (Wargaming.net): $446
  6. Lineage 1 (NCsoft): $339
  7. Maplestory (Nexon): $253
  8. DOTA 2 (Valve): $238
  9. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve): $221
  10. Grand Theft Auto V (Take-Two Interactive): $205
Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

See comments