Digital games earned the highest monthly revenue ever in November with $11.5 billion in sales, according to SuperData, a Nielsen company providing intel on games and media. This marks a 15 percent year-over-year increase; PC reached a new earnings record with a 22 percent increase, largely in thanks to the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands release, while mobile gaming grew nine percent.

Console revenue was up 24 percent, but did not break its all-time record set in April 2020. This is likely due to a limited supply of next-gen consoles, as players unable to purchase a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series S|X may have waited to buy new titles until they had the new hardware.

That said, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is reported as the top grossing console game of November, selling 5.7 million digital copies. NBA 2K21 came in 2nd, and Watch Dogs: Legion 3rd. No unit sales numbers were reported on the other two games.

The top grossing PC titles were World of Warcraft West, League of Legends, and Dungeon Fighter Online. Garena Free Fire was the top grossing title on mobile gaming, followed by Pokemon GO and Roblox.

No numbers associated with game rankings were provided beyond Call of Duty.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla sold 1.7 million units, 50 percent more than Assassin’s Creed Odyssey at its launch. Game revenue was up 23 percent from Odyssey, but in-game revenue was down 62 percent, likely because Valhalla did not offer a paid experience booster at launch. Ubisoft did add a booster in December.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales sold 663,000 digital units, a far cry from the 2018 launch of Marvel’s Spider-Man, which sold 2.2 million units.

On the other hand, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands brought the game’s highest revenue since 2008, and the highest player engagement since 2010. It also broke the record for the fastest-selling PC game in its first day of release. Whether Shadowlands can maintain player numbers and hype remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Among Us saw half a billion users in November, making it the most popular game ever in terms of monthly players. Earnings are smaller as Among Us is not a monetized game; Revenue from PC players, who pay a $5 price for the game, accounted for three percent of November users.

Photo courtesy of Activision

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