Led By Fortnite, Free-To-Play Titles Amassed 80% Of Digital Gaming Revenue In 2019

Free-to-play gaming revenue dominated other sectors in 2019, according to SuperData's Year In Review report, released today. Free-to-play games accounted for 80% of all digital game revenue in the year, mostly coming from mobile titles, but even F2P PC revenue far outstripped its premium and pay-to-play PC counterparts.

On the flip side, free-to-play gaming on consoles amounted to just $1.6 billion in revenue, compared to $13.8 billion for premium games. For 2020, SuperData predicts roughly similar revenue for both mobile and F2P PC games but a sharp downturn for F2P console games, especially in North America and Europe. Obviously, they're not taking the upcoming Phantasy Star Online 2 launch on the Xbox One into account.

As far as individual games went, most of the top sellers were mobile or Eastern titles, though Fortnite (mostly Battle Royale) was still #1, for the second year in a row. League of Legends was #4 on the list; SuperData said that, despite LoL's bigger audience, Fortnite players were twice as likely to spend on in-game content, possibly due to the game's many tie-ins with popular culture brands like Avengers, Stranger Things, Star Wars, and the NFL.

The rest of the report has information on the top-selling premium games of the year, XR (AR/VR/MR) games, gaming video content, and more. You can get it for free from the SuperData site.