Digital gaming revenue grew 12% in 2020, while Cyberpunk 2077 earned $ 609 million

Digital gaming company SuperData has released a report for 2020 in which it can be seen that games sold 12% more compared to the previous year, ie $ 139.9 billion was spent on digital titles this year alone.

It can be noticed in the report that the first ten titles participate in 34% of the total earnings. Console sales also increased by 28%, and the North American region is most responsible for this increase because almost every other console sold is from that continent. There is no doubt that the pandemic also had a significant impact.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is one of the most popular games this year, breaking the console record for digital downloads at launch. The game was downloaded by 5 million users in March 2020 alone, and by the end of the year, the game had earned Nintendo $ 654 million. 

However, last year was marked by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which was also the highest-earning title thanks to a hybrid business model that introduced a free Warzone and thus drastically increased the player population.

Sports games like Fife and NBA 2K were also among the top 10 games because, in the early stages of the pandemic, as many as 36% of gamers replaced watching sports with playing games. When sports competitions started showing again, the games still had good results. And single-player games have helped grow as several long-awaited titles have come out such as Doom Eternal, The Last of Us Part 2, and Cyberpunk 2077.

Doom Eternal had a very successful launch with 3 million copies sold, which is three times more than the previous Doom title from 2016. The Last of Us 2 and Ghost of Tsushima sold 2.8 million and 1.9 million copies in the first month. 

When we talk about titles for one player, we must also mention Cyberpunk 2077, which, despite all the problems and a period of less than a month, managed to find itself in the top ten with $ 609 million from digital copies.

Free games continue to account for a large share of global video game revenue, accounting for 78% last year, while the Asian market is responsible for 59% of this type of earnings. Interest in VR games grew at the same time along with other genres thanks to Half-Life: Alyx. 

The game is responsible for the 25% increase and sold 1.9 million copies in the first six months, which is higher revenue than the total that VR games generated in 2019.