Digital CCG Players Outnumber Physical CCG Players But Spend Much Less

Jason Winter
By Jason Winter, News Editor Posted:
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SuperData 2017 CCG audience

A new report from SuperData sheds some light on the global collectible card game market and shows a significant difference between physical and digital CCG players.

As you can tell by the charts at the top of the report page, SuperData puts the number of digital card flippers at 40.6 million, compared to just 25.4 million players of physical CCGs. That gap seems reasonable; despite their relative newness, digital CCGs are much easier to get into, being both available 24 hours a day from your home and typically being free-to-play.

But there's a bigger gap in spending habits -- in the other direction -- as seen in this chart Tweeted out by SuperData:

That's $1.38 billion for digital CCGs, as opposed to a whopping $4.34 billion for their physical counterparts. Dividing by the numbers above indicate that the average physical CCG player spends $171 per year on his game, as compared to just $34/year for a digital CCG-er.

Further details on the report page indicate that Hearthstone has four times the revenue of its next closest competitor in the digital space, while Shadowverse brought in an impressive $100 million in 2016. If you're so inclined, you can purchase the rest of the report for $2,499, or about the price of a used Black Lotus.

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In this article: Hearthstone, SuperData, Shadowverse.

About the Author

Jason Winter
Jason Winter, News Editor
Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

Discussion (6)

rusty buttee 6 years ago
So physical card games are worse since you pay way more for your cards like 100s of dollar and then have to find people to play with. I played magic for about 1 year cost 500 dollars to stay relevant. Its and endless cycle of wallet screw.

Physical copies of games are better 6 years ago
The physical counterpart of games was always better they just do sneaky stuff to get the people who buy the digital download of games to buy more. Personally I perfer physical copies of games but I will get it download if I have to or feel the need to but I avoid it if I can reguardless of what people say.

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