Cyberpunk 2077 Is the Biggest Digital Launch Ever; Refunds Didn’t Substantially Affect Aggregate Sales, Says SuperData

Jan 22, 2021 at 04:30pm EST
Cyberpunk 2077 Modding CD PROJEKT RED

SuperData, the Nielsen company focused on digital gaming industry research, shared its latest monthly report for the month of December 2020 where Cyberpunk 2077 dominated the charts.

In fact, according to SuperData, it was the biggest digital launch of all time and the game's extended refunds didn't substantially affect aggregate sales.

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Cyberpunk 2077 had the biggest game launch of all time based on digital revenue and digital units sold (10.2M)*. A successful marketing campaign and the reputation of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt provided the hype necessary for the CD Projekt Red title to break records despite issues including performance problems on consoles, widespread glitches and the indefinite removal of the game from the PlayStation Store. An extremely high share of digital sales (80%) were on PC, likely due to the delisting on PlayStation and overall state of the console versions.

* These estimates do include digital copies that have been refunded, but our data shows that refunds did not substantially affect the game's aggregate sales.

Overall, the digital gaming market had a record month of December with $12 billion in gross revenue (the highest monthly total ever recorded) and a 15% growth on a year-over-year basis according to SuperData. Other top performers underlined in the report include strong Fortnite earnings (the highest the game had seen since August, thanks to massive events such as the fight against Galactus when 15.3 million concurrent users were online) as well as the highest digital monthly earnings to date for Rockstar's GTA Online thanks to the release of the Cayo Perico Heist, the game's biggest update ever released.

Among Us fell a bit from the incredible player figures registered last month, but it still was almost three times as popular as the second most played game (Roblox). SuperData also estimates Nintendo Switch sales for the game to be 3.2 million.

About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.

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