PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was probably the most worthwhile digital premium game in 2018, regardless of spending a lot of the yr in decline.
According to SuperData’s end-of-year report, PUBG earned over $1 billion in digital income worldwide, placing it forward of juggernauts equivalent to FIFA 18, GTA 5, and even Red Dead Redemption 2.
This determine covers the PC, PS4, and Xbox One variations, not PUBG Mobile. This is especially shocking, as a result of the game’s concurrent participant numbers on PC have been declining since February.
PUBG spent nearly your complete yr bleeding thousands of players, and has solely not too long ago began recovering. In truth, in response to the report, PUBG’s earnings jumped by 19% in 2018 in comparison with 2017.
There had been a number of different success tales within the premium section in 2018. Red Dead Redemption 2, regardless of solely inserting at quantity 5 ($516M), broke information for highest digital income in a single quarter. Rockstar’s newest launched very late within the yr, in fact, and its on-line element, Red Dead Online, even later.
Considering how properly GTA Online, and GTA 5 proceed to do years from launch, the order of the record could look completely different by the tip of this yr.
Call of Duty: Black Ops four earned $612 million, touchdown it a spot at quantity 4. SuperData’s report says participant numbers at launch had been much like Call of Duty: WW2’s, however solely on consoles. On PC, they greater than doubled to 1.four million in comparison with 594,000.
The greatest winner within the premium section, nonetheless, must be Monster Hunter World. Though it’s solely managed the quantity eight spot ($467M), it’s not an annualised franchise, or a recurring live-service game. Red Dead Redemption 2 shares these identical properties, in fact, however it’s in the end a Rockstar game, which nearly at all times break information.
That mentioned, seeing Monster Hunter World make it this large within the West after spending years as a distinct segment, only-relevant-in-Japan collection, is nothing in need of staggering.
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