A few companies are starting to shy away from single player video games in favor of something more multiplayer-oriented. Case in point – Electronic Arts shut down Visceral Games and its Star Wars project after it was looking to reconfigure it into some sort of multiplayer experience.
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But if the numbers just revealed by SuperData indicate anything, it’s that single player games are anything but dead. The company’s newest report suggests that single player adventures “still have legs” in the gaming market, indicating they aren’t nearly as dead as some companies may suggest.
Even though the report did show that several multiplayer games are in the top ten sellers for the month, there’s still room for single player games, with South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and Assassin’s Creed Origins managing to make more than $160 million in digital full game sales.
That said, the company is unsure how the games will last in the long-term, mainly because single player games are “harder to monetize through microtranscations” – and we already know how a lot of you feel about having loot boxes in video games.
The report shows that, for the month of October, games spent $8.5 billion across console, mobile and PC, which is $1.1 billion higher than what they spent last October. Meanwhile, games like FIFA 18 and Grand Theft Auto V (and its Online component) continue to be big sellers on the digital front, making a huge amount of revenue.
But perhaps the most interesting portion of the report is how closely in competition PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite are. Earlier this year, Epic Games introduced a Battle Royale mode to its popular Fortnite (much to Bluehole Games’ shagrin), and has garnered a much larger audience as a result. Epic’s user base has grown larger than PUBG‘s, according to the report, though the company is making less money on the revenue side of things, since Fortnite is generally free-to-play, while Battlegrounds requires a purchase.
This could easily change in December once PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds debuts on the Xbox One, so stay tuned.
Here are the top ten best sellers for the month of October – and no doubt November numbers will be more interesting.
- FIFA 18
- Middle-Earth: Shadow of War
- Destiny 2
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Assassin’s Creed Origins
- NBA 2K18
- Forza Motorsport 7
- South Park; The Fractured But Whole
- Madden NFL 18
- Gran Turismo Sport
