Circana has released its monthly report on the US gaming market. July 2024 was marked by the launch of EA Sports College Football 25, which boosted gamer spending on consoles.
EA Sports Football 25
- The U.S. video game market generated $4.77 billion in July (+10% year-over-year), according to a new report from Circana’s Mat Piscatella, with spending to date up 2% year-over-year to $32.1 billion.
- Video game spending increased 10% year-over-year to $4.26 billion, driven by 29% revenue growth in console games and 7.6% in mobile, but PC gaming spending fell 6%.
- Hardware spending increased 12% year over year to $326 million, with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S sales up 25% and 48%, respectively. Nintendo Switch saw a 44% drop in U.S. sales.
- The PS5 remained the leader in unit and dollar sales, while the Xbox Series X|S took second place in both categories.
- Piscatella noted that July 2024 will be the first month since December 2023 with year-over-year growth in hardware spending.
July 2024 U.S. Video Game Market Highlights from Circana – Projected U.S. spending on video game hardware, content, and accessories reached $4.8 billion in July 2024, up 10% year-over-year. Year-to-date spending for 2024 is now $32.1 billion, up 2% year-over-year. pic.twitter.com/CvBmszvoA8
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) 21 August 2024
- EA Sports College Football 25 was the best-selling premium game in July, with the EA Sports MVP pack coming in second.
- The game’s strong debut also helped it dethrone Helldivers 2 and make it the best-selling title of the year, with Circana calling it “the primary driver of content and hardware growth on console platforms.”
- Piscatella added that EA Sports College Football 25’s launch sales were more than three times the total sales of Electronic Arts’ NCAA Football 07, the best-selling college football game in the U.S. to date.
Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games in July 2024 – USA (Dollar Revenue, Physical and Digital from Digital Release Publishers, Excluding Add-On Content) pic.twitter.com/oiDy4xRySw
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) 21 August 2024
- In terms of player engagement, Fortnite continued to dominate on PlayStation, but lost its top spot to Call of Duty HQ on Xbox. The First Descendant made it into the top 10 by MAU on both platforms, jumping 312 and 372 spots respectively.
- Once Human, another Asian free-to-play hit, ranked 4th in MAU on Steam. Elden Ring remained the leader on the platform, followed by Counter-Strike 2 and The First Descendant (up 98 places).
The 10 most played titles on Steam in July 2024, sorted by monthly active users in the US (Source: Circana Player Engagement Tracker) pic.twitter.com/kVzzK5O5CK
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) 21 August 2024
- According to Sensor Tower, Monopoly Go! was the top-grossing mobile game in the US last month, followed by Roblox, Royal Match, Candy Crush Saga and Pokémon GO, with the latter jumping 5 spots compared to the previous month.
- Shooters and simulations were the top performing genres in July, with Free Fire, PUBG Mobile and Goddess of Victory: Nikke, for example, seeing a 50% increase in US player spending, while Call of Duty: Mobile’s revenue increased 32% compared to June.
