The State Of The Worldwide Digital MMOs Market, October 2015

Dota 2's popularity continues to lag after the International 2015 tournament in October 2015, according to SuperData Research. The market analyst firm provided a screenshot of the industry for the month, revealing some interesting facts.

The second most popular MOBA Dota 2 can't catch a break. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has regularly encroached on its territory as the number 1 top player game on Steam—even overtaking it on some days—and now MapleStory has usurped its position to enter the top 5 profitable free-to-play MMOs. Nexon's zany side-scroller has been making a large push lately, releasing multiple mobile titles and a recently announced complete reboot of the game, titled MapleStory: Reboot. It joins League of Legends, Crossfire, Dungeon Fighter Online, and World of Tanks  at the roundtable, who have remained in their respective positions since September. Whether MapleStory can hold its place or Dota 2 regains the throne in December is anyone's guess.

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Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic have climbed the worldwide revenues hierarchy in their respective domains, owning to recent expansions. Guild Wars 2's base free-to-play transition bolstered sales by making the game accessible to a wider audience, motivating conversions on the expansion. World of Warcraft remains the most popular pay-to-play MMO, but has seen declining numbers in recent months and the prolonged period before the release of the expansion Legion may mean a further population drop. However, after the reported 5.6 million low in June, 2015 Blizzard announced they will no longer be reporting subscriber numbers. Activision's Financial Officer Dennis Durkin stated, ""Note that this is the last quarter that we plan to provide the subscriber number as there are other metrics that are better indicators of the overall Blizzard business performance."

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive continues to see enormous growth, dominating PC revenues. It's a surprise too, considering its main competitor through the Steam platform is free-to-play. While we expect CS: GO to adopt a free-to-play model eventually it doesn't appear necessary anytime soon (perhaps not until the next rendition of Counter-Strike is released). The tactical FPS averaged 362,000 players in October, 2015, dwarfing competitors except for Crossfire.

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Nintendo is breaking new ground by entering the mobile games market. Miitomo is a free-to-play game where players customize Mii avatars that communicate with other friends' Miis. Information regarding gameplay is limited, but appears to emphasize social interaction. The game will release in March, 2016 and be followed by augmented reality game Pokemon GO, created in partnership with former Google subsidiary Niantic Labs. More players spend money on mobile gaming in Japan than anywhere else in the world, perhaps due to the ubiquitous presence of handhelds in the country. Nintendo will likely test games in their home market to judge international appeal.

Tencent, the Chinese giant that owns Riot Games, announced their own VR project titled miniStation. The console is powered by Android and will release in two flavors, but only the higher-end model will support a Tencent-created VR device. Little information is available but it signifies Tencent's dominance in the Chinese market. Analysts have predicted that VR devices such as the Gear VR and Oculus Rift will struggle to permeate China due to high consumer cost. But if Tencent creates an affordable device it will see widespread adoption and cement Tencent's grip on the Chinese VR market.

Sources:

SuperData Research: Worldwide digital games market: October 2015