Digital CCG Players Outnumber Physical CCG Players But Spend Much Less

A new report from SuperData sheds some light on the global collectible card game market and shows a significant difference between physical and digital CCG players.

As you can tell by the charts at the top of the report page, SuperData puts the number of digital card flippers at 40.6 million, compared to just 25.4 million players of physical CCGs. That gap seems reasonable; despite their relative newness, digital CCGs are much easier to get into, being both available 24 hours a day from your home and typically being free-to-play.

But there's a bigger gap in spending habits -- in the other direction -- as seen in this chart Tweeted out by SuperData:

Collectible card games will bring in $5.7B this year https://t.co/EPLpTQggsX pic.twitter.com/pMAqBQovgd

— SuperData (@_SuperData) January 26, 2017

That's $1.38 billion for digital CCGs, as opposed to a whopping $4.34 billion for their physical counterparts. Dividing by the numbers above indicate that the average physical CCG player spends $171 per year on his game, as compared to just $34/year for a digital CCG-er.

Further details on the report page indicate that Hearthstone has four times the revenue of its next closest competitor in the digital space, while Shadowverse brought in an impressive $100 million in 2016. If you're so inclined, you can purchase the rest of the report for $2,499, or about the price of a used Black Lotus.