SuperData’s August 2017 global revenue report confirms what anybody even casually watching PUBG already knows: The upstart game that’s kicking butt on Steam is the literal definition of industry disruptor.
Over on the PC side, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds dislodged World of Warcraft by one place since last month, while DOTA 2 fell down to 10 and ROBLOX fell out of the listing as CS:GO returned. On console, GTAV/GTAO is still on top, though Overwatch got bumped one place thanks to the entry of Yet Another Madden game. And the mobile listing shuffled slightly, with Pokemon Go inching upward once again.
“PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds continues to dominate PC game sales, despite still being in Steam Early Access,” says SuperData. “PUBG is the number 1 premium PC game for the 3rd month in a row and has overtaken World of Warcraft on the total PC games list for the first time.” Indeed, the company says PUBG sales accelerated last month, “bringing total life-to-date sales close to 9 million units through August.”
Don’t feel too badly for Blizzard, however; as SuperData notes, Overwatch’s monthly active users on PC hit an all-time high in August, and Hearthstone’s revenue likewise peaked during that same period, both on the heels of major updates.
Finally, the analysts suggest free-to-play is growing again.
“In the U.S., digital games revenue grew year-over-year. This growth was underpinned by a rise in free-to-play digital revenue. This more than offsets the decline in pay-to-play, which was down on a difficult comparison against World of Warcraft: Legion last year.”
