SuperData has released its 2020 Year in Review for digital games and interactive media, listing the highest-earning premium games of last year. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare emerged on top, earning $1,913 billion in revenue. Much of that success can be attributed to Call of Duty: Warzone, the battle royale mode which saw a massively positive response.

Titles like FIFA 20, Grand Theft Auto 5 and NBA 2K21 also featured in the rankings. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which recently had Warzone integrated into it, managed to earn $678 million in revenue while Cyberpunk 2077 raked in $609 million. On the Nintendo side, Animal Crossing: New Horizons managed to earn an impressive $654 million.

As SuperData notes, the top 10 highest-earning premium titles managed to account for 34 percent of the overall market. The COVID-19 pandemic also played a role in the popularity of games last year – a survey by SuperData indicated that 36 percent of players would indulge in video games in place of other entertainment. With the release of next-gen consoles, it remains to be seen if this year can top the last in terms of revenue. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

As noted with sales for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, SuperData’s worldwide digital sales report for November 2020 is now available. The firm revealed digital sales for Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which sold 663,000 units on PS4 and PS5. Though this isn’t anywhere near the launch month digital sales of Marvel’s Spider-Man, it did perform better than Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (whose scale it was compared to).

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, the latest expansion for the long-running MMO, also did pretty well. Its monthly revenue and player numbers were the highest since 2008 and 2010 respectively. Earnings and player numbers were also 50 percent and 34 percent higher respectively compared to 2018’s Battle for Azeroth.

However, as with past expansions, it’s likely that this spike won’t last for very long. How Blizzard Entertainment can keep its fan base engaged over the next few years until a new expansion drops remains to be seen. For more details on World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, you can check out our review here.

SuperData’s report on worldwide digital game sales for November 2020 is in. Revenue earned from digital releases for the month hit $11.5 billion, which is the highest monthly revenue ever. This is thanks to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War which sold a staggering 5.7 million digital units.

Call of Duty: Warzone also continued to be a strong success with 2.7 times as many players as Black Ops Cold War for the month. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which Ubisoft touted as having the best first-week launch sales of any title in the franchise, also did very well. It sold 1.7 million units, 50 percent more than Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

Though its revenue was 23 percent higher, in-game revenue dropped by 62 percent. Though it had microtransactions at launch, this might be due to the lack of XP boosters (which were only recently added). The title recently saw the launch of its new Yule Festival, which allows players to expand their settlement, complete various activities for Yule Tokens and earn a new Mōdraniht Ceremonial outfit. The new River Raid mode is coming up in February 2021 so there’s plenty more to look forward to.

It’s perhaps no surprise that Call of Duty: Warzone, the free to play battle royale title, made a big splash when it debuted last month. The title reportedly had over 50 million players as of April 10th. In March, however, it provided a significant boost to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s monthly active users which rose by 159 percent month-over-month to hit 62.7 million players according to SuperData.

Though Warzone can be played standalone, it can also be accessed as a separate mode when playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Both titles also share Battle Pass progression, not to mention offers like free multiplayer weekends for Warzone players in Modern Warfare. Other offers have since begun to emerge, like purchasing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered and receiving cosmetics in Warzone.

We’ll have to see how Warzone performs long-term but Infinity Ward is doing a decent job thus far. It’s banned 70,000 cheaters recently and will implement anti-cheat measures for the battle royale mode as well as Modern Warfare. Stay tuned for more updates, especially with the development team eying some Fortnite-style events in the future.

While DOOM Eternal had a pretty strong reception in terms of worldwide digital sales in March 2020, it paled in comparison to Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons. SuperData revealed that the Nintendo Switch exclusive managed to sell five million digital units last month, which is more than any other console game in history. Yes, it even broke the record established by Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

Digital sales for Animal Crossing: New Horizons in March “roughly matched” first month digital sales for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Sword and Shield combined. The closure of brick and mortar stores contributed to the rise of digital sales. However, positive reviews and the game’s generally relaxing atmosphere were also credited for its success.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been making waves since release. Its estimated physical sales as of April 16th crossed 3.3 million units in Japan and it was the best-selling game in the United States last month as per The NPD Group. More updates and support are planned in the coming months, especially with the recent April update bringing new seasonal events so expect sales to grow further.

SuperData’s report on worldwide digital game sales in March 2020 has been released and it’s revealed some rather interesting numbers about last month’s biggest releases. Key among them is id Software’s DOOM Eternal which managed to sell 3 million digital units, over three times that of DOOM (2016) which sold 957,000 units.

It’s not surprising considering the hype around the game and positive reviews before launch. That being said, SuperData believes there may be a shorter revenue tail due to it being a primarily single-player game as opposed to having microtransactions like multiplayer titles. Half-Life: Alyx is even more interesting, however.

The VR title had 860,000 players last month but the revenue from direct purchases totaled $40.7 million. This is primarily due to the title being provided for free to those who purchased the Valve Index. Of course, the limited install base of VR headsets, especially on PC, also contributed to the sales numbers. Valve is still looking to support the game with its level editor and mods so it should have a thriving community around it for some time to come.

Epic Games’ free to play Fortnite: Battle Royale has been incredibly popular, even though reports have indicated a decline in revenue since its launch. Said data is often provided by market intelligence firm SuperData but Epic Games doesn’t agree with its overall reports. In a recent statement to GamesIndustry.biz, a representative called the firm’s reports “wildly inaccurate.”

“SuperData does not and has not ever had access to Epic’s Fortnite revenue data, and SuperData’s reports do not accurately reflect Fortnite’s performance. We are disappointed that SuperData has repeatedly published wildly inaccurate reports about Fortnite based on what we believe is questionable methodology.”

“While we do not and have not publicly shared revenue numbers for Fortnite, we will say that SuperData’s reports do not align with reality.” It should be noted that Epic wasn’t addressing any specific report from the firm. However, SuperData did note that Fortnite digital revenue was at its lowest since November 2017 in its most recent report, which might have hit a nerve.

SuperData did issue a response to Epic, noting that it stands by its reported revenue and that possesses “a proven methodology and validation process.” Time will tell where this goes but even if revenues are declining, Fortnite is still one of the highest grossing games in the world. It’s also going strong in terms of new content and support with Season 2 of Fortnite: Chapter 2 releasing recently.

Though it missed out on being the top-selling game in March for the United States, FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has still performed tremendously well. We already know that it sold over two million copies worldwide in just ten days. However, digital sales alone turned out to be very good, with 1.4 million copies sold on PC and consoles in March.

As per SuperData, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice had one of the most successful digital launches last month. Its total digital sales actually exceeded those of Dark Souls 3, FromSoftware’s last major release, by 200,000 copies. Consoles were credited for this growth.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has been acclaimed by critics since launch, marking a significant departure from the Soulsborne formula while still providing a compelling action-adventure experience. You can check out GamingBolt’s official review here. You can also check out our rankings of the main bosses and mini-bosses in order of their difficulty.

Insomniac’s Spider-Man couldn’t beat Destiny 2 in September when it came to digital console sales. Nevertheless, it was still a massive success for Sony. Along with being the biggest launch for the company thus far, Spider-Man sold 2.17 million digital units for the PS4 last month, according to SuperData. This doesn’t include codes that were bundled with consoles.

This puts the game slightly ahead of God of War, which was the fastest selling PlayStation exclusive in The NPD Group’s history at one point. Sony have also reported that Spider-Man was its fastest-selling exclusive ever, garnering 3.3 million units in sales in just three days. That comprised of both digital and retail sales though, so it’s interesting to see the margin for digital downloads.

The actual sales total taken with physical sales could thus be higher, and that’s not factoring October’s sales into account. All in all, Spider-Man is a home run for Insomniac and Sony, with further support coming in The City That Never Sleeps DLC chapters. The second chapter, Turf Wars, is scheduled to release in November.

It should come as no surprise that Fortnite is commercially very successful right now, but we now have the data to prove it. A research firm known as SuperData published a new report regarding the battle royale phenomenon, and how impactful Fortnite has been on the whole.

As of now, Fortnite has passed the important milestone of having earned $1 billion revenue from in-app purchases, which is certainly a huge feat. The success of the game has also been having an impact on the console market as a whole. In May, the game was viewed for a total of 574 million hours on Twitch, which also contributed to making the battle royale genre the most viewed genre on the site, with a lifetime total of 700 million hours viewed.

SuperData also predicts that the battle royale genre as a whole is going to continue to grow. While total revenue for the battle royale genre was just $1.7 billion in 2017, the report estimates it will get a lot higher in 2018, with a projected revenue $12.6 billion, and even higher in 2019 with a projected revenue of $20.1 billion. Finally, SuperData also analysed the audience for the genre, and discovered that most of the audience came from shooter games, while some were from roleplaying games and games from other genres.

You can check out more information about Fortnite and the battle royale genre as a whole in the data shared below.