Downloadable content is having a happy holiday season.
PC DLC sales doubled on Black Friday in the U.S., and digital game sales totaled $1.1 billion in November, up 23 percent from a year earlier, according to market researcher SuperData Research.
Chief executive Joost van Dreunen said that DLC will be on the rise as gamers embrace downloading expansions and full games — and retailers cut prices on hardware.
“Digital gamers spent 23 percent more around Thanksgiving compared to last year,” he said. “PC, digital console, and mobile games especially benefitted from this increase in appetite, with the average spending on PC DLC nearly doubling on Black Friday.
“Traditionally, digital games do not follow the drastic seasonal spikes of retail, which remains vastly dominant during the holiday season.”
But this time, he said that retail’s huge discounts on hardware in the U.S. were instrumental in driving digital mobile and console game sales, earning revenues of $355 million and $111 million, respectively.
“Overall, spending on digital games reached over one billion in sales in November, as the holiday frenzy reaches critical mass,” van Dreunen said.
SuperData expects annual DLC sales to top $603 million in 2015. Additional content on consoles — expansion packs and maps — saw a 30 percent increase from a year ago. Game publishers are less willing to do exclusive games for consoles, but they are willing to give exclusive DLC to platform owners like Sony or Microsoft.
Meanwhile, SuperData also made comments on other digital businesses. Van Dreunen noted Borderlands Online will join Call of Duty Online as new entries soon in the $1.2 billion shooter market in China. 2K Games has partnered with Shanda Games to release Borderlands Online as a free-to-play massively multiplayer online shooter in China.
Activision, meanwhile, is preparing to formally launch Call of Duty Online with Tencent. The open beta of the modern combat game will start early next year. Smilegate’s Crossfire game, which is five years old, has grossed nearly $1.06 billion this year so far.
Van Dreunen said that Valve’s announcement of Steam Broadcasting, a new livestreaming service, could target up to 100 million potential viewers and braodcasters. Over 100 million fans watched e-sports in 2014, and 20 million of them tuned in to watch the finals of Valve’s own Dota 2 tournament.