SuperData Says that Hearthstone is Up and WoW is Down

It is time for the monthly digital sales chart for April 2019 from SuperData Research, and it does have more than the usual amount of changes.

SuperData Research Top 10 – April 2019

On the PC end of the chart the top six remained the same, though League of Legends swapped places with Dungeon Fighter Online, retaking its long held first position.

After World of Tanks though, there were some changes.  Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 made the cut a month late, likely due to an end of the month release. (It topped the console chart last month.)  And Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice stayed on the chart, which is pretty good for a single player game.  Hearthstone West made the cut as well, riding the wave of yet another new expansion into ninth place, and CS:GO popped back up into tenth place yet again.

Missing from the list completely though was long staple World of Warcraft, which does not bode well for the sagging title.  Then again, SuperData put up a chart showing that the WoW Classic Beta was drawing a lot of people to watch it on Twitch.

Weekly most-watched titles on Twitch #Highlight: World of Warcraft community is excited about the launch of WoW Classic. Read more: https://t.co/AkSu1kipGu #Twitch #gamingcontent #WOWClassic pic.twitter.com/bQcoOiFhOr

— SuperData (@_SuperData) May 24, 2019

So it may be nostalgia that revives its fortunes… if we can wait until August.

Also not on the PC chart: Any battle royale games besides Fortnite.  Neither its early rival, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds nor the hot release earlier this year, Apex Legends, are there.

The chart is only ten deep, so we don’t know what 11-20 looks like, but still it is a blow to not make the cut.

On the console section Mortal Kombat 11 topped the list, followed by Fortnite and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.  Last months top finisher, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, was down in 10th place.  And, gone missing after a long, long run on the list was Grand Theft Auto V.

And on the mobile end of the chart Honour of Kings regained the top spot from Perfect World, which fell to second place, while Candy Crush Saga and Pokemon Go fell to fourth and sixth places respectively.

EEDAR has their top ten list for April out as well.

1. Mortal Kombat 11
2. Days Gone
3. MLB 19: The Show
4. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2**
5. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
6. Grand Theft Auto V
7. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice**
8. Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII**
9. NBA 2K19
10. Yoshi’s Crafted World*

*No digital data
**No digital data for PC

As is the case, this is US only data, combines PC and console sales, and does not include digital sales where indicated.

For EEDAR’s social media impressions Fortnite remained on top, followed by usual suspects of League of Legends, Grand Theft Auto V, and CS:GO, with Hearthstone slipping into the fifth spot, supplanting DOTA 2.  Again, this is likely due to a new expansion released for Blizzard’s collectable card game.  Apex Legends, which topped the chart in February, remains out of the top five, corresponding with its drop from the SuperData charts.

Other items from the SuperData Research report:

• Growth in digital console spend makes up for sluggish PC sales. Consumers spent $8.86 billion digitally on games across console, PC and mobile worldwide in April, up 7% from the same month last year. Premium console, up 17%, was the fastest-growing segment due to the continued mix shift towards digital channels for full game units. PC overall declined 4% year-over-year despite modest growth within the free-to-play segment.
• Mortal Kombat 11 has the best digital launch in franchise history. MK 11 sold 1.8 million digital units across console and PC in May, up from 400,000 units for Mortal Kombat X in 2015, largely due to rising digital download rates on console.
• NBA2K growth accelerates as the NBA post-season heats up. We estimate NBA2K in-game spending grew 101% year-over-year in April, marking the largest single-month growth rate the franchise has seen since 2016.
• Apex Legends falls out of the top rankings on console and PC. Apex Legends generated $24 million in April, down significantly for the second month in a row. Monthly revenue now sits at just over one-quarter of the launch-month sales from February.
• Overwatch and Hearthstone still face declines despite new content updates. Both titles saw a sequential bump in total digital revenue following new content releases, but still declined 15% and 37% year-over-year, respectively. On a combined basis, Overwatch and Hearthstone digital revenue across all platforms is down 39% year-to-date compared to the same time period in 2018.