God of War Drives Single-Player Resurgence With $131 Million in Digital Revenue
At its current rate, God of War might well be the best-selling game of 2018. Although there are still months left in the year for another title to catch up, it will certainly be a challenge for any game to do as well as Santa Monica Studios’ latest game. New market research carried out by SuperData has revealed that God of War revenue in digital sales alone has so far brought in over $131 million.
God of War Revenue and the Impact for Single-Player Games
SuperData published the findings in an article entitled; “The Maturation of Narrative in Video Games”. The article looked at digital revenue from a variety of single-player, story-driven games. In addition to God of War, they also examined Uncharted 4 and The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.
“The surging emphasis of rich storytelling in games is a key reason why story-driven titles are earning big,” stated the article; “During their respective launch months; The Witcher 3 earned $69M, Uncharted 4 made $56M, and God of War raked in $131M in total digital revenue. These results show that there is a significant demand for narrative experiences among gamers.” God of War’s success is particularly notable given that the game is a PlayStation exclusive title. In fact, its launch month was the most successful launch month of any PlayStation exclusive ever. The game has broken numerous sales records, and claimed top spot after top spot in the retail sales charts.
A popular narrative in recent years has been that single-player games have been in decline. Multiplayer-only titles like Fortnite have been shaping a new gaming trend which has increasingly sidelined narrative-driven titles. (Especially titles without a multiplayer component.) God of War and other recent narrative-game successes appear to rebuke that opinion firmly. Such data is now becoming more and more apparent. It could easily prompt developers to follow the trend; producing more single-player content which emphasizes well-written stories.