Numerous video games were released in 2016. New hardware came out as well, albeit largely refreshed and updated versions of consoles in the PlayStation 4 Pro, PlayStation 4 Slim, and Xbox One S. Commercially available virtual reality headsets were released in much greater numbers and at much lower price points than the enthusiast-only virtual reality headsets of earlier generations. Augmented reality also became mainstream with Pokémon Go.[1] Top-rated games originally released in 2016 included Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Inside, Overwatch, Forza Horizon 3, Madden NFL 17, WWE 2K17, NBA 2K17, Dark Souls III, and Battlefield 1 and Doom 2016. The top five highest-grossing video games of 2016 were League of Legends, Honor of Kings/Arena of Valor, Monster Strike, Clash of Clans, and Dungeon Fighter Online.
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Top-rated games
Major awards
Critically acclaimed titles
Metacritic (MC) and GameRankings (GR) are aggregators of video game journalism reviews.
Financial performance
Analysis firm SuperData estimated that the global video game software market brought in $91 billion in revenues in 2016; this was an increase over the $74 billion estimated for 2015, but SuperData noted that their 2016 estimates included a larger data set. Of the $91 billion, $41 billion was attributed to mobile gaming, particularly the titles Clash Royale and Pokémon Go, with the largest mobile gaming section in Asia with total revenues near $25 billion.[13] Personal computer video games made up $34 billion, with $19 billion contributed from free-to-play games, and console games, retail and downloadable, were $26 and $6.6 billion, respectively.[14] The firm also identified that virtual reality (VR), professional video game sports, and streaming were still growing markets in the year.[14] DFC Intelligence reported similar numbers for revenues in the various sectors, and noted that mobile gaming revenues overtook both console and personal computer revenues in 2016.[15]
Newzoo estimated that $70.4 billion of video game revenues were made by the top 25 publicly-trading companies, led by Tencent ($10.2B), Sony ($7.9B), Activision Blizzard ($6.6B), Microsoft ($6.5B) and Apple, Inc. ($5.9B). The top ten companies brought in more than 54% of total revenues during 2016, up from 43% in 2015.[16]
IHS Markit estimated that worldwide revenue related to console hardware, software, and services was $34.7 billion, down about 2.5% from 2015; hardware sales were down from $12.8 billion to $10.5 billion, while software and service revenues were up. Sony held about 57% of the market share during 2016, followed by Microsoft and Nintendo.[17]
Within the United States, revenues from the video game industry in 2016 was estimated at $30.4 billion by the Entertainment Software Association and NPD Group, slightly up from 2015's $30.2 billion. Of that, $24.5 billion was spent on video game software, an increase of 6% from 2015. Digital purchases, which included full game purchases, downloadable content, game subscriptions, and mobile game microtransactions, made up 74% of this number, continuing a steady increase of digital sales over retail since 2010.[18] Sales were driven by the introduction of VR, Pokémon Go and Pokémon Sun and Moon, and the games Battlefield 1, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Madden NFL 17, NBA 2K17 and Tom Clancy's The Division.[19]
Highest-grossing games
The following were 2016's top ten highest-grossing video games worldwide in terms of digital revenue (including digital purchases, microtransactions, free-to-play and pay-to-play) across all platforms (including mobile, PC and console platforms). Six of the top ten highest-grossing games are published or owned by Tencent.
| Rank | Game | Revenue | Publisher(s) | Genre | Platform | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | League of Legends | $1,700,000,000 | Riot Games / Tencent | MOBA | PC | [20] |
| 2 | Honor of Kings / Arena of Valor | $1,610,000,000 | Tencent | MOBA | Mobile | [21] |
| 3 | Monster Strike | $1,300,000,000 | Mixi | Physics | Mobile | [20] |
| 4 | Clash of Clans | $1,200,000,000 | Supercell (Tencent) | Strategy | ||
| 5 | Dungeon Fighter Online (DFO) | $1,100,000,000 | Nexon / Tencent | Beat 'em up | PC | |
| 6 | Clash Royale | $1,100,000,000 | Supercell (Tencent) | RTS | Mobile | |
| Crossfire | $1,100,000,000 | Smilegate / Tencent | FPS | PC | ||
| 8 | Puzzle & Dragons | $955,000,000 | GungHo Online Entertainment | Puzzle | Mobile | [22] |
| 9 | Pokémon Go | $950,000,000 | Niantic / Nintendo / The Pokémon Company | Augmented reality | Mobile | [23] |
| 10 | Game of War: Fire Age | $910,000,000 | Machine Zone | Strategy | Mobile | [20] |
Events
| Month | Day(s) | Event |
|---|---|---|
| January | 4 | Activision Blizzard announced that they had acquired Major League Gaming.[24] |
| 5 | The Mixer streaming service is launched as Beam. | |
| 6 | Square Enix closed cloud video game subsidiary Shinra Technologies.[25] | |
| 8 | Marc Laidlaw, lead writer of the Half-Life series, retired from Valve.[26] | |
| David Brevik, the CEO of Gazillion Entertainment, left the company.[27] | ||
| 12 | Electronic Arts introduced Origin Access, a new subscription service for Windows.[28] | |
| 13 | Leslie Benzies, producer and president of Rockstar North, left the company after a 16-month sabbatical. His positions were taken up by Aaron Garbut and Rob Nelson.[29] | |
| 16 | Brian Horton, director of Rise of the Tomb Raider, left Crystal Dynamics for Infinity Ward.[30] | |
| 22 | David Gaider, lead writer of Dragon Age, left BioWare.[31] | |
| 28 | Bungie announced that Pete Parsons had replaced Harold Ryan as the company's president.[32] | |
| GOG.com launched Games in Development, their own early access program.[33] | ||
| Sumo Digital announced their plan of establishing a new studio in Nottingham.[34] | ||
| 29–31 | PAX South 2016 held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.[35] | |
| February | 8 | Blizzard Entertainment celebrated its 25th anniversary.[36] |
| GameTrailers video game website was closed.[37] | ||
| 15 | Rapper Lupe Fiasco and esports player Daigo Umehara have an exhibition match of Street Fighter V to promote the game.[38] | |
| 27 | The Pokémon franchise celebrated its 20th anniversary.[39] | |
| Unknown | Ryan Barnard, game director of Tom Clancy's The Division, left Massive Entertainment for IO Interactive.[40] | |
| March | 7 | Press Play, the developer of Max: The Curse of Brotherhood and Kalimba was closed by Microsoft Studios.[41] |
| 9 | Nexon acquired Big Huge Games, the developer of DomiNations.[42] | |
| Riot Games acquired Radiant Entertainment, the developer of Rising Thunder.[43] | ||
| 14–18 | Game Developers Conference 2016 held in San Francisco, California.[44] | |
| 15 | Jagex was acquired by Chinese mining company Shandong Honda.[45] | |
| 22 | Bigpoint Games was acquired by Youzu Interactive.[46] | |
| Evolution Studios, the developer of MotorStorm and Driveclub, was shut down by Sony Computer Entertainment.[47] | ||
| The Resident Evil franchise celebrated its 20th anniversary.[48] | ||
| 24 | Sony Computer Entertainment announced that they had founded a new studio, ForwardWorks to develop mobile games.[49] | |
| 31 | n-Space, the developer of Sword Coast Legends, was closed.[50] | |
| Sega completed its acquisition of Atlus. Future Atlus-developed titles localized for America will be published by Sega.[51] | ||
| April | 5 | Karthik and Guha Bala, founders of Vicarious Visions, left the company.[52] |
| 11 | Codemasters announced the company had employed the majority of Evolution Studios' employees.[53] | |
| 14 | Leonard Boyarsky left Blizzard Entertainment to join Obsidian Entertainment.[54] | |
| 18 | GameStop announced GameTrust, a new publishing division.[55] | |
| 20 | Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the production of Xbox 360.[56] | |
| 22 | Tatsuya Minami, president of PlatinumGames, left the company.[57] | |
| 22–24 | PAX East 2016 held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.[58] | |
| 25 | Patrice Desilets gained back the rights to 1666 Amsterdam and settled the lawsuit with Ubisoft.[59] | |
| 26 | NIS America announced that they had cut ties with Atlus after Sega's acquisition of Atlus.[60] | |
| SNK Playmore was restructured to form SNK.[61] | ||
| 29 | Lionhead Studios was closed by Microsoft Studios.[62] | |
| May | 10 | Avalanche Software was shut down by parent company Disney Interactive Studios. Disney decided they would not self-publish any titles in the future, and instead rely on external partners.[63] |
| 13 | Yahoo! Games was shut down by Yahoo!.[64] | |
| 18 | Electronic Arts announced that they had formed a new studio called Frostbite Lab.[65] | |
| The creator of the Madden NFL series, Rich Hilleman, left Electronic Arts.[66] | ||
| IGN purchased assets of GameTrailers from Defy Media.[67] | ||
| 30 | Starbreeze Studios acquired the Payday franchise from 505 Games.[68] | |
| June | 1 | Vivendi succeeded in Gameloft's hostile takeover, seizing control from the Guillemot brothers.[69] |
| 2 | Techland established a new publishing label called Techland Publishing.[70] | |
| 3 | Aaron Linde, the writer of Battleborn, left Gearbox Software.[71] | |
| 6 | Future Publishing purchased Imagine Publishing, the owner of GamesTM.[72] | |
| 10 | Ubisoft Casablanca was closed by Ubisoft.[73] | |
| 12–14 | Electronic Arts held their first fan-orientated public event named EA Play.[74] | |
| 14–16 | E3 2016 was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center.[75] | |
| 21 | Supercell, the developer of Clash of Clans, was acquired by Tencent for $8.6 billion.[76] | |
| 23 | The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise celebrated its 25th anniversary. | |
| July | 1 | Josh Mosqueira, the director of Diablo III, announced that he had left Blizzard Entertainment.[77] |
| 5 | Sega announced that they had acquired Endless Space developer Amplitude Studios.[78] | |
| 8 | Adam Boyes, VP of third party relations & developer technology group of Sony Interactive Entertainment, departed from the company.[79] | |
| 11 | Splash Damage, the developer of the two Enemy Territory games, was acquired by Chinese chicken meat company Leyou.[80] | |
| 19 | Dino Patti, co-founder of Playdead, departed the company.[81] | |
| August | 3–13 | The International 2016, the second highest paying eSports tournament in history, was held at the KeyArena in Seattle.[82] |
| 4–7 | QuakeCon 2016 was held in Hilton Anatole in Dallas.[83] | |
| 5 | Relentless Software, the developer of the Buzz! series, shut down.[84] | |
| 12 | Nordic Games, the company that acquired most THQ's franchises, rebranded to THQ Nordic.[85] | |
| 15–16 | Game Developers Conference Europe 2016 was held in Cologne, Germany. | |
| 17–21 | Gamescom 2016 held in Cologne, Germany.[86] | |
| 21 | Shinzo Abe appears at the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony out of a warp pipe while wearing Mario's hat to promote the 2020 Summer Olympics.[87] | |
| 29 | Independent developer Renegade Kid was replaced by two companies: Atooi (who owns all of Renegade Kid's 2D IPs) and Infinitizmo (which owns all of Renegade Kid's 3D IPs).[88] | |
| September | 2–5 | PAX West 2016 held at the Washington State Convention Center. |
| 13 | Microsoft Studios launched Xbox Play Anywhere, a cross-play program between Windows 10 and Xbox One.[89] | |
| Chris Metzen announced his departure from Blizzard Entertainment.[90] | ||
| 15–18 | Tokyo Game Show was held and celebrated its 20th Anniversary | |
| 21 | Blizzard Entertainment announced that they would be phasing out their online system Battle.net.[91] | |
| 28 | Ubisoft acquired Ketchapp, the developer of 2048.[92] | |
| October | 12–13 | Steam Dev Days held in Seattle, Washington.[93] |
| 17 | United Front Games, the developer of Sleeping Dogs, shut down.[94] | |
| 20 | Nintendo publicly announces its next home console, the Switch.[95] | |
| 21 | The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists begins a strike against eleven American video game developers and publishers over payments of residuals to voice and motion capture artists in video games.[96] | |
| 25 | The Tomb Raider franchise celebrated its 20th anniversary. | |
| November | 4–5 | BlizzCon 2016 held in Anaheim, California.[97] |
| December | 1 | Annapurna Pictures establish video game division Annapurna Interactive.[98] |
| The Game Awards 2016 held in Los Angeles, California. | ||
| 3–4 | PlayStation Experience 2016 held in Anaheim, California. | |
| 16 | Shinji Hirano, the former president of Konami Europe, became the CEO of Kojima Productions.[99] | |
| 20 | Atlus formed a new development studio called Studio Zero.[100] | |
| Crytek closed its studio in Bulgaria, Hungary, Turkey, South Korea, and China.[101] |
Notable deaths
- February 3 – Joe Alaskey, 63, voice actor known for the voice of Bugs Bunny and others in the Looney Tunes franchise.
- March 17 – Larry Drake, 67, voice actor known for the voice of Kazdan Paratus in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.[102]
- June 3 – Muhammad Ali, 74, boxer who appeared in Muhammad Ali Heavyweight Boxing, Foes of Ali, Knockout Kings, UFC 5, and WWE 2K24.[103]
- June 10 – Christina Grimmie, 22, music youtuber known as zeldaxlove64 and host of Disney.com's gaming show Power Up. Grimmie also appeared in a commercial for the Kinect.[104][105][106]
Hardware releases
The list of game-related hardware released in 2016 in North America.
| Month | Day | Console |
|---|---|---|
| March | 28 | Oculus Rift |
| 30 | Microsoft HoloLens | |
| April | 5 | HTC Vive |
| August | 2 | Xbox One S |
| September | 15 | PlayStation 4 Slim |
| October | 13 | PlayStation VR |
| November | 10 | Google Daydream |
| PlayStation 4 Pro | ||
| 11 | NES Classic Edition |
Series with new entries
Series with new installments in 2016 include Ace Attorney, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Civilization, Cossacks, Dark Souls, Dead Rising, Deus Ex, Dishonored, Digimon, Doom, Driveclub, Far Cry, FIFA, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, Forza Horizon, Gears of War, Hearts of Iron, Hitman, Homefront, Homeworld, Kirby, Mafia, Mario Party, Master of Orion, Metroid, Mirror's Edge, Paper Mario, Persona, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, The Playroom, Pokémon, Ratchet & Clank, Shadow of the Beast, Shadow Warrior, Sonic the Hedgehog, Star Fox, Star Ocean, Street Fighter, Titanfall, Total War, Uncharted, Watch Dogs, XCOM, and Zero Escape.
In addition, 2016 saw the introduction of several new properties, including Abzû, Hyper Light Drifter, Inside, The Last Guardian, No Man's Sky, Owlboy, Obduction, Overwatch, Quantum Break, Stardew Valley, Tom Clancy's The Division, and The Witness.
Game releases
The list of games released in 2016 in North America.
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January–March
April–June
July–September
October–December
Video game-based film and television releases
Cancelled games
Cancelled
- Batman: Arkham Knight (Mac, Lin)[803]
- EverQuest Next (Win, PS4)[804]
- Fable Legends (Win, XBO)[805]
- Halo Online (Win)[806]
- Hyper Light Drifter (PSVita, Wii U)[807]
- Nosgoth (Win)[808]
- Not a Hero (PSVita)[154]
- Project: Knoxville (XBO)[41]
- Rising Thunder (Win)[43]
- Scribblenauts: Fighting Words (iOS)[809]
- Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (PS3, X360)[810]
- Triad Wars (Win)[811]
- The Walking Dead: Season Three (PS3, X360)[812]
- Unnamed extreme sports game by Criterion Games[813]
- Whore of the Orient (Win, PS4, XBO)[814]
- Yooka-Laylee (Wii U)[815]
Discontinued
See also
References
Notes
- A The release date is slated for Japan only.
- B A western or worldwide release of previously regional exclusive games.
- C These games were targeted to be released in fiscal year 2017, which begins on April 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017.