Hearthstone is killing itself - Superdata Research firm's monthly digital revenue report says Blizzard's card game hits new low on mobile as worldwide digital sales growth slows

Brendan Sinclair North American Editor Tuesday 28th March 2017 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Blizzard

Blizzard Entertainment may have dealt itself a few bad hands lately in regards to its PC and mobile hit Hearthstone. Superdata today released its worldwide digital games market report for February, and the research firm concluded that "Hearthstone is killing itself."

According to Superdata, February saw Hearthstone revenues on iOS and Android at their lowest since those versions of the game launched, down significantly year-over-year and month-over-month. The desktop version of the game has also seen declining revenues, though not to the same extent as on mobile.

"Recent gameplay decisions have been unpopular with the Hearthstone community, and the result has been a sharp decrease in conversion on mobile," according to Superdata.

Elsewhere in the market, Electronic Arts continues to do well with FIFA 17 and Battlefield 1. The soccer franchise's digital revenues were up double-digits for February, while the World War I-set shooter doubled the digital units sold of its two clearest rivals, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Titanfall 2. However, Superdata does note that Infinite Warfare's first DLC release pushed it to the top of the heap when it came to revenue from additional content for the month.

Superdata also applauded Ubisoft for the Valentine's Day launch of For Honor, saying it sold through 700,000 copies digitally on consoles and PC.

Overall, global digital revenues were up 4% for the month to $7.83 billion, while US digital revenues were up 6.4%. Consoles saw an impressive 18% jump in year-over-year digital revenues--which Superdata attributed to higher selling prices for games sold--while mobile revenues were up "slightly."