Game Market Overview. The Most Important Reports Published in May 2024

• InvestGame: Gaming Investment Market in Q1’24
• SJN Insights: Analysis of the UK Gaming Market in 2023
• Game Sales Round-up (17.04.24 - 30.04.24)
• Omdia: 19.3 million handhelds were sold in 2023
• AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in April 2024
• Circana: The US gaming market in March 2024 grew by 4%
• Liftoff & GameRefinery: Casual Games in 2024
• Newzoo: Top 20 PC/Console games in March 2024 by Revenue and MAU
• Lurkit: State of the Streaming market in Q1’24
• Liftoff: CPI and D7 ROAS benchmarks in Mobile Games
• Stream Hatchet: Streaming Market Trends in Q1’24
• GameDiscoverCo: Data Consumption in Steam by Country in 2024
• Newzoo: Outlast Trials became the top-grossing B2P adventure game of March
• GameDiscoverCo: Conversion benchmarks of Steam wishlists into sales in the first month
• IGDA: Developer Satisfaction Survey 2023
• GSD & GfK: Fallout 4 became the best-selling PC/Console game of April in the UK
• Games & Numbers (01.05.24 - 14.05.24)
• SGA: The Serbian gaming industry doubled its workforce in 2023
• GSD & GfK: PC/Console game sales in Europe dropped in April 2024
• Mistplay: Spending habits of Mobile Gamers in South Korea in 2024
• Daniel Ahmad: Sony shipped 5 times more consoles to stores in Q1'24 than Microsoft did with the Xbox Series S|X
• Newzoo lowered its Forecast for the Gaming Market in 2023
• Notes of the Nintendo FY'24 report
• GameAnalytics: Benchmarks in Mobile Games for Q1’24
• Famitsu: Nintendo Switch has become the best-selling console in Japan's history
• StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg - State of the Streaming Market in April 2024
• Games & Numbers (15.05.24 - 28.05.24)
• Big Games Machine: How People Discover New Games in 2024
• Metaplay: How much does it cost to develop custom Backend Services in Mobile Gaming Companies?
• Circana: The US Gaming Market Decreased by 3% in April 2024
• PlayStation 5 is the most profitable console for PlayStation & more from a new FY'23 PS business presentation

InvestGame: Gaming Investment Market in Q1’24

Private Investments

• Private investment volume in Q1’24 reached its peak since Q3’22 - $2.2 billion. However, it's important to note that $1.5 billion is attributed to the deal between Disney and Epic Games.

• In the first quarter of 2024, 103 deals were made. This is fewer than in the first quarter of 2023 (147 deals) but more than in the past 3 quarters.

• InvestGame vividly illustrates the market's development stages on a graph - showing how investment activity has changed at different stages.

• The InvestGame team expresses cautious optimism about the market situation and notes the growth of pre-Seed and Seed deals. However, the market situation remains far from optimal.

Private Investments - Gaming Companies (Developers or Publishers)

• If we consider only investments in gaming companies at stages prior to Series A, then in Q1’24, 28 deals were made totaling $115 million.

• The situation with VC deals in later rounds is less positive. In Q1’24, 4 deals were closed totaling $160 million. Three of them were less than $100 million; one was larger.

• Corporate investors in Q1’24 made 6 deals totaling $1.613 billion (including the Disney deal with Epic Games). The InvestGame team notes that corporate funds are increasingly behaving like VC funds, investing at early stages. Tencent, NetEase, Krafton, Kakao, Sony are particularly active (25 such deals since 2022).

• Since 2019, over 45 funds have emerged in the market. Twice as many as in the previous 10 years. They have attracted over $15 billion but have only reinvested $7 billion so far. Despite the challenging market situation, 10 funds were announced in Q1’24. Over 80% of all funds focus on early-stage investments.

• 1Up Ventures; BITKRAFT Ventures; Transcend Fund; The Games Fund; Ludus Ventures - the most active players in Seed stages in Q1’24.

• The primary markets for investments remain the USA and Western Europe.

Private Investments - PC/Console Market

• Since 2020, VC funds and PE firms have invested over $3.4 billion in PC/console companies. 50% of this amount was in Series B+ rounds. The majority of deals, both in terms of quantity and volume, occurred in 2021.

• The number and volume of Seed rounds for PC/console developers have remained almost unchanged over the years, while Series A+ rounds have decreased both in volume and quantity.

• Meanwhile, there have been 37 deals totaling $91 billion for PC/console developers since 2020.

Private Investments - Mobile Market

• The number of M&A deals with mobile developers has been decreasing since 2021 in terms of both volume and quantity of deals.

• The popularity of mobile studios among VC and PE investors is also declining. In 2023, such studios attracted $0.3 billion in 42 deals.

• The decline is most noticeable in later stages. The number and volume of Seed rounds are more stable.

M&A

• In Q1’24, 23 M&A deals totaling $2.2 billion were completed.

• The most notable deal of the quarter was the acquisition of Jagex for $1.1 billion.

IPO

• The situation with going public remains complex. High interest rates and poor performance of companies already on the market are putting pressure.

• The largest upcoming IPO might be Shift Up. It is reported that they have already applied to the Korea Stock Exchange with a valuation of $2 billion.

• Many public gaming companies are currently trading at a discount, so they are conducting buyback campaigns.

Source

The analysis is based on data from GSD and GfK. It includes actual sales figures shared by publishers and stores.

• The number of copies sold in 2023 increased by 3% compared to 2022. That's 38.3 million games.

• Until May 2023, sales dynamics mirrored those of 2022. It was only from May onwards that the market surged, largely due to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Diablo IV.

• When comparing sales of new games (games less than 3 months on the market), 2023 unexpectedly turned out to be 1% worse than 2022 (11.8 million copies). However, back-catalog sales (games older than 3 months) grew by 5% compared to 2022.

❗️The calculation methodology used by GSD and GfK is somewhat atypical. In my opinion, the back-catalog should include projects released before the reporting year.

• User spending on games increased by 4% - reaching £1.27 billion. Digital sales saw an 8% growth (£785 million), while physical copy sales decreased by 2% (£487 million).

• The number of digital version sales is increasing, but the rate of replacing boxed versions of games has slowed down.

• The average price of new physical format games increased by 14% in 2023 (£57), compared to 2021 (£50). A similar percentage growth is seen in digital versions - from £59 in 2021 to £68 in 2023.

• The average price of all disc format games increased from £33 in 2021 to £34 in 2023. The growth is more noticeable in digital format - from £24 to £29.

• In 2023, games from the top 10 of the British chart sold 2% worse than the top 10 in 2022, considering only physical copies.

• However, the situation is similar when considering digital versions.

❗️For some reason, British consumers were not very optimistic about new releases in 2023.

Source - GamesIndustry.biz

• Sea of Thieves has over 40 million users. The impressive milestone was announced a week before the release on PlayStation, and the player count has grown even more since then.

• Buckshot Roulette reached over a million copies sold in 2 weeks. It's an indie horror game about "Russian roulette."

• House Flipper 2 sold 13,088 copies on Xbox ($511.7k revenue) and 18,170 copies on PlayStation ($667k revenue) in the first 3 days on consoles. The results are four times worse than on PC, where the game was purchased 131 thousand times in a similar period in December 2023.

• Frostpunk surpassed the great milestone of 5 million copies sold. An excellent achievement.

• Users have spent over $8 billion on Pokémon GO since its release, according to AppMagic analysts. During the same period, the game was downloaded over 656 million times.

• Capcom and Niantic reported 15 million downloads of Monster Hunter Now. AppMagic notes that during this time, the game has earned $164 million gross.

• Manor Lords sold over 1 million copies within a day of its release. At the time of launch, the game had over 3.2 million wishlists. The project's peak CCU is 173 thousand people. One person made the game, Greg Styczeń (Slavic Magic); Hooded Horse published the project.

• In the first 2 weeks, over 65 million people watched the Fallout TV series. The majority of viewers are aged between 18 and 34. The top countries for viewership are the United Kingdom, France, and Brazil.

Omdia: 19.3 million handhelds were sold in 2023

This segment includes the Nintendo Switch; portable PC consoles (Steam Deck); streaming systems (PlayStation Portal); and historical portable consoles (Nintendo 3DS; PlayStation Vita).

• Omdia notes that 19.3 million portable devices were sold in 2023, fewer than in 2021 and 2022.

❗️This is related to the end of the life cycle of the Nintendo Switch.

Newzoo accounts for data in the USA, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France.

Revenue - all platforms

• Dragon’s Dogma II became the second highest-grossing game in March, managing to surpass even EA Sports FC 24 and Helldivers II.

• Among other new releases in terms of revenue for the month were WWE 2K24 (5th place); MLB The Show 24 (13th place); and The Outlast Trials (20th position).

• Diablo IV and Destiny 2 significantly increased their revenue rankings (presumably due to a 50% discount at the end of March for Diablo IV and the Guardian Games event for Destiny 2).

PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch Revenue charts

• The most active chart in terms of new releases was on PlayStation - 5 new games: Dragon’s Dogma II; WWE 2K24; MLB The Show 24; Rise of the Ronin; and The Outlast Trials.

• Princess Peach: Showtime! on Nintendo Switch performed well, debuting at the second position in revenue, second only to Fortnite.

MAU - all platforms

• The MAU situation in the monitored markets remains stable. Fortnite; Call of Duty; Minecraft; Grand Theft Auto V; Roblox; Rocket League; Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege; and EA Sports FC 24 are the leaders.

• In March, Helldivers II continued its active growth in MAU.

MAU - by platforms

PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch MAU charts

• F1 23 and Sifu entered the top 20 MAU chart on PlayStation. Thanks to the PS Plus.

• Palworld fails to retain its audience. The game dropped out of the top 20 in MAU on PC, and on Xbox, it fell from 7th place to 18th.

Source

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Lurkit: State of the Streaming market in Q1’24

The company analyzed the top 500 games on Twitch by the hours watched.

Key findings

• In Q1’24, 52,108 games appeared on Twitch. The top 500 accounted for 69.8% of all viewing hours.

• The number of hours users spent watching games from the top 500 reached 3.8 billion hours. This is 10% more than in Q1’23.

• 67.2% of hours watched are accounted for by games from the top 20. 88.3% - for games from the top 100.

• Grand Theft Auto V (479 million hours) is the most viewed game in the first quarter.

• Fortnite is the top game in terms of streaming hours. It accounts for 8.12% of all streaming hours among the top 500 games.

• The top 10 most successful developers' games account for 59% of all hours watched. This is less than 63% in Q1’23. Riot Games is the most successful developer in terms of watched hours (671 million hours across all games).

❗️Lurkit included Hidden Path Entertainment in the list of most successful developers. In reality, it is a studio that helped Valve create CS:GO, so when data is exported for CS2, it is listed among the creators.

• 25 games released in the first quarter of 2024 made it into the top 500 for Q1’24 in terms of hours watched.

• Palworld is the most successful new game of the quarter, with 76 million hours watched. This is 128% more than Helldivers II.

Source

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Liftoff: CPI and D7 ROAS benchmarks in Mobile Games

The report is based on research results from January 1, 2023, to January 1, 2024. 602 billion impressions were analyzed; 49.4 billion clicks; 144 million downloads.

CPI - benchmarks for advertising formats in games

• The lowest CPI is for native formats (feed integration, widgets, etc.) - $3.09 on iOS and $1.22 on Android. $1.8 on average.

• Banners are second ($2.14 on average - $3.26 on iOS and $0.88 on Android); Playable format is more expensive ($2.38 on average - $5.76 on iOS and $0.6 on Android).

• The most expensive advertising formats on average are Interstitial ($2.66 on average - $5.84 on iOS and $0.82 on Android) and video ($2.68 on average - $5.91 on iOS and $0.86 on Android).

Conversion from impression to install

• The worst conversion is for banners. Liftoff took it as the baseline.

• Results for native advertising formats are 1.6 times better.

• There is a significant difference with video ads (conversion is 23 times better than banners); Playable ads (conversion is 27 times better) and Interstitial (conversion is 30 times better).

Day 7 ROAS - benchmarks in games

• The worst D7 ROAS results are for Playable ads (6.81%); Interstitial format (8.14%) and video ads (8.29%).

• The best results are for banners (18.2%) and native advertising (20.26%).

❗️Liftoff notes that the situation regarding D7 ROAS can vary dramatically depending on the genre, audience, spending level, and many other factors. This is an average figure overall.

Source

 

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Stream Hatchet: Streaming Market Trends in Q1’24

Stream Hatchet tracks all streaming platforms in the market.

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• After a two-year decline, the number of viewing hours in Q1’24 increased by 10% compared to Q1’23, totaling 8.2 billion hours. This figure is 128% higher than in Q1’19 and 61% higher than in Q1’20.

• Twitch remains the market leader, capturing 69% of the total viewing volume. YouTube Gaming follows with 16.5% of all hours. Kick, in its first year in the market, secured the third position with 4.4% market share; the platform is popular among gambling streamers. AfreecaTV (3.5% market share) ranks fourth, and Steam (1.8%) fifth.

• In Q1’24, Twitch accumulated 5.7 billion hours, up by 3% from Q1’23. YouTube Gaming grew by 19% YoY, reaching 1.4 billion hours. Interestingly, Steam emerged as the fastest-growing streaming platform (+109% YoY). VK also showed growth at 17%, albeit on a smaller scale (136 thousand viewing hours).

❗️It seems that Twitch growth almost stopped, while YouTube Gaming continues to actively attract/re-engage the audience.

• Counter-Strike 2 (13.7 million hours), Enshrouded (9.4 million hours), and Dragon’s Dogma II (4.9 million hours) were the most-watched games on Steam.

• 39.1% of all Steam views in Q1’24 were from new games. Twitch had only 7% from new games, and YouTube Gaming had 4.3%. Streaming new games on Steam appears to be an effective strategy.

• CHZZK and AfreecaTV confidently took the lead over Twitch in South Korea. The latter announced its exit from the market due to high operating costs. It turned out that the average views of the top 7 South Korean streamers on CHZZK are higher than on Twitch.

❗️CHZZK took the majority of the Twitch audience. AfreecaTV hasn’t benefitted that much. Curious to find reasons.

• Grand Theft Auto V (590 million hours), League of Legends (526 million hours), and Counter-Strike 2 (299 million hours, +72% QoQ) were the most-viewed games in the first quarter. Seven out of ten games in the top 10 saw growth in views, with an average increase of +31%.

• Palworld was the most-viewed newcomer in Q1’24, garnering over 95 million viewing hours in its first month.

• FPS (1.3 billion hours, +25% QoQ), action-adventures (1.1 billion hours, +7% QoQ), and MOBA (889 million hours, +3% QoQ) were the most popular genres in the first quarter.

Source

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GameDiscoverCo: Data Consumption in Steam by Country in 2024

Data was collected from April 5th to April 12th, 2024. 

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• China accounts for 25.6% of all data consumption in Steam; the USA - 20.6%; Russia - 5.9%. These are the top three leaders.

❗️Bandwidth consumption does not indicate the number of users or revenue. Players may download more games or prefer more "heavy" projects.

• It's unusual to see Thailand in the ranking. This country accounts for 1.3% of the total data volume.

• If we look at the distribution of data consumption by regions, Asia accounts for 30.4%; North America - 23.4%; Western Europe - 16.3%; Latin America - 7.7%; Russia - 6.1%; Eastern Europe - 4.5%; Southeast Asia - 3.6%; Middle East - 2.7%; Oceania - 2.1%; Ukraine and CIS - 2.1%.

By this link you will find the raw data and comparison with February data.

Source

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Newzoo: Outlast Trials became the top-grossing B2P adventure game of March

Newzoo is tracking data in 37 markets, excluding China and India.

• In terms of MAU, Outlast Trials ranked third among all games released in March. It was the top new adventure game in March based on this metric.

• In overall MAU within the genre, the game ranks 30th. The majority of players are from the USA and Germany.

• 0.9% of the tracked audience played Outlast Trials. On average, they spent 9.1 hours in the game.

• Users spent a total of 1.5 million hours watching content related to the game on Twitch and YouTube.

• The highest number of users in Outlast Trials came from Fortnite (38.9%), Call of Duty (34.7%), and Helldivers II (32.4%). If we’ll look at adventure genre alone, most players came from Palworld (29.6%), Dead Island 2 (24.6%), and Lethal Company (23.3%).

• The largest audience overlap with Outlast Trials is with Lethal Company (50.9% of users). Following are Phasmophobia (48.8%) and Call of Duty (42.7%).

• Regarding overall revenue, GTA V leads in the genre. However, considering the business model, Outlast Trials is the top among paid games. It also ranks 7th in this metric among all games in March.

❗️You can question the taxonomy, though. What is adventure games, and what’s not.

• The primary markets for Outlast Trials are the USA and the UK.

Source

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GameDiscoverCo: Conversion benchmarks of Steam wishlists into sales in the first month

700 games on Steam released since September 2023 were examined, each having at least 5,000 wishlists and 500 sales in the first month.

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• Conversion in the first month ranges from 0.06 (10th percentile) to 1.34 (90th percentile).

• The median conversion rate of wishlists to sales in the first month is 27%. In the first week, it is 22%.

• The higher the game's rating, on average, the higher the conversion rate from wishlists to sales. This is especially noticeable at ratings of 95%+ (Overwhelmingly Positive) - in such cases, the conversion is 0.51 in the first month.

• On average, the conversion of wishlists to sales in Early Access is lower than at full 1.0 launch by third.

 

• There is a correlation between conversion and price. For games priced between $1 and $10, and for free projects, the conversion is higher than for others. Conversion is worst for games priced at $15-30.

Source

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IGDA: Developer Satisfaction Survey 2023

The research was conducted from May 17th to October 20th, 2023. 777 people participated in it.

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Demographics

• Most of respondents (68%) are between the ages of 28 and 47.

• Among the respondents, 63% are male, 31% are female, and the remaining 8% identify as non-binary individuals.

• 63% are married or in a relationship; 34% are single; 2% are divorced. 1% is missed somewhere. 27% of respondents have children.

• IGDA notes that the sample had more white people and did not have enough representation of Latin Americans, African Americans, and Asian people.

• 47% of respondents work in the USA; 11% - in Canada; 7% - in Finland; 6% - in Germany; 5% in the UK.

• 44% have mental or physical disabilities. 24% indicate they have neurodiversity; 15% report having mental illnesses.

Equality, Inclusion, and Diversity at Work

• 85% of respondents believe that equality, diversity, and inclusion are important in the workplace, in games, and in the gaming industry overall (87%).

• 58% of respondents believe that the gaming industry has become more inclusive and diverse in the past 2 years.

• However, 28% note that their companies lack EDI programs. 30% don't know.

• 72% of respondents note that their companies have policies against gender discrimination. 61% note that companies adhere to inclusive hiring policies. 62% say that companies have programs against sexual harassment.

• However, only 43% of respondents believe that all these policies actually work and are correctly implemented.

• 67% of respondents believe that there is discrimination in the gaming industry.

• However, 54% of respondents have never personally experienced discrimination; 39% have never experienced it themselves and have not seen such examples in the market.

Employment

• Only 4.8% of respondents noted that they are actively seeking employment. 52% were laid off; 15% voluntarily left their companies; 11% left because their contract ended; 11% were fired; 11% are self-employed without a current contract.

• 30% of unemployed people have been looking for work for over a year. 22% cannot find work for 3 to 6 months. Almost all (93%) are looking for work in the gaming industry.

• 49% of employees work 40-44 hours per week. 35% work from 20 to 39 hours. However, self-employed individuals work overtime more often.

• 28% of employees note that they experience crunch; 25% reported that their work includes periods of long hours of overtime.

• During crunches, 59% of specialists worked more than 50 hours per week. 10% had extreme overtime of 80+ hours per week.

Relationships with Employers

• 67% have good or excellent relationships with management. 23% described relationships as normal, and only 10% - as bad.

• 13% of respondents are members of a union. The percentage is higher than in 2021 (12%) and 2019 (6%). Most employees have a positive attitude towards unions.

• 73% of full-time employees earn over $50,000 a year. However, 22% earn over $150,000 a year. Freelancers earn less on average; and self-employed individuals either earn very little (30% - less than $15,000 a year) or a lot (21% - over $150,000 a year).

• 80% of full-time employees note that their companies have salary increase programs.

• 32% of employees do not receive any overtime compensation.

Source

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GSD & GfK: Fallout 4 became the best-selling PC/Console game of April in the UK

Analytical platforms report only the actual sales figures obtained directly from partners. The mobile segment is not taken into account.

Game sales

• 2.23 million games were sold in April 2024 in the UK. This is 7% less than the previous year. We should note, that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Dead Island 2 were released in April 2023, and they make the difference.

• Fallout 4, amidst the success of the series, became the best-selling game in the UK. Fallout: New Vegas entered at 8th place; Fallout 76 - at 9th; Fallout 3 - at 11th.

• Stellar Blade debuted at 12th place on the chart. The game is available exclusively on PlayStation 5.

• EA Sports FC 24 (2nd place) and Helldivers II (3rd place) traditionally sell well.

Console sales

• In April, 71 thousand consoles were purchased in the UK. The number of systems sold plummeted by 39% YoY.

• PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X sales decline is approximately the same (-25% YoY); Nintendo Switch fell by 38%.

❗️Here, presumably, GfK refers to a decline in sales in dollar terms.

• 530k accessories were sold in April - it’s 28% less than the previous month; but 7% more than in April of the previous year. DualSense is the sales leader.

Source - GamesIndustry.biz

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Games & Numbers (01.05.24 - 14.05.24)

PC/console games

• Helldivers II sold 12 million copies in 12 weeks, surpassing the previous record holder, God of War: Ragnarok (11 million copies in 3 months).

• Hades II topped the chart of paid game sales on Steam from May 7th to May 14th. The peak online player count reached 103.5k. The first part's record was 37.7k. VG Insights estimates that the game has already been purchased 831 thousand times.

• 7 million people played Dead Island 2 over the year. These are not sales, as the game appeared on Game Pass in February. 2 million copies were bought in the first month.

• Koei Tecmo reported that Rise of the Ronin's sales exceeded each of the two Nioh parts in the first month (the first part sold only 3 million copies; the second - 2 million).

• Just two days after the release, Gray Zone Warfare sold 400 thousand copies.

• Little Kitty, Big City, a game about a kitten's adventures in the city, was bought 100 thousand times in 2 days. The game is also available on Game Pass.

• The Polish team Donkey Crew announced that Bellwright sold 150 thousand copies in 12 days. The game was released in early access on Steam on April 23rd.

Mobile games

• Sensor Tower reports that Summoner’s War has earned over $3 billion in revenue in the 10 years since its release. 30.4% of this amount came from the USA, and 18.1% from Japan. The game ranks 6th in the list of highest-grossing RPGs over the past 2 years.

• Uma Musume Pretty Derby has earned $2.4 billion in three years, according to Sensor Tower. 90% of the revenue came from Japan. 78% of the audience are men.

• Squad Busters reached 30 million early registrations in 11 days. The company aimed to achieve this figure by the release on May 29th.

• Over 100 million people played AFK Arena. Lilith Games shared this figure in celebration of the project's 5th anniversary.

Shift Up, the creators of Goddess of Victory: Nikke, revealed that the project generated $750 million in revenue over 1.5 years. 61% of this amount came from Japan, 17% from the USA, and 14% from South Korea.

SGA: The Serbian gaming industry doubled its workforce in 2023

The study covers 80% of association representatives. Financial indicators represent the status of the country's top 21 companies.

Overall figures

Business in Serbia

• Most gaming studios are located in Belgrade (75) and Novi Sad (27).

• 57% are developers working on their IP, 11% are outsourcers, 7% are art outsourcers, and 6% develop their own technological solutions.

• 33% of companies represented in Serbia have branches abroad.

• 82% of Serbian teams consist of up to 20 people.

Games from Serbian companies

• In 2023, Serbian studios released 6 mobile and 24 PC/console games. Action, adventure, and RPG are the three most popular genres.

• 41% of projects are distributed with the B2P model, while 59% are F2P, with different monetization focuses.

• 47% of games are made in Unity, 28% in Unreal Engine.

• 51% of projects are planned for release on PC, 43% on mobile devices, 23% on consoles, 11% on VR/AR, 8% on the web, and 2% on social networks.

• 17% of projects have a budget exceeding $1M, while 80% have less than $500 thousand.

Talents in Serbia

• The number of gaming industry workers in Serbia increased by 98% to 4300 people in 2023, mostly from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, influenced by the relocation of Wargaming, Sperasoft, Playrix, and other big Eastern European companies.

• Currently, 48% of all employed industry workers in Serbia are foreigners.

• Most people in Serbia are involved in programming, art, and QA.

• 60% of companies plan to expand their staff in Serbia in 2024.

Ecosystem in Serbia

• 76% of respondents are optimistic about the future of the gaming industry in Serbia.

• However, only 21% are satisfied with the government support measures in Serbia. Tax incentives (78%) and improving education (55%) are the most required.

Source

GSD & GfK: PC/Console game sales in Europe dropped in April 2024

Analytical platforms report only actual sales figures obtained directly from partners. The mobile segment is also not taken into account.

Game sales

• 10.5 million games were sold in Europe in April of this year. This is 6.2% less than in April 2023.

• Stellar Blade is the only new entry this month to make it into the top 10. The project debuted at number 9.

• Fallout 4 became the best-selling game of the month. Earlier, it was reported that the game achieved similar success in the UK. More than half of all sales were attributed to the PC version.

• Also in the top 10 were Fallout 76 (7th place) and Fallout: New Vegas (10th place). Fallout 3 took the 14th spot on the chart.

• EA Sports FC 24 narrowly outsold Helldivers II. They hold the second and third spots on the chart, respectively.

Console sales

Data does not include the UK and Germany.

• Console sales in European countries dropped by 47%. This is attributed to both the restoration of console availability in stores (there was a sales surge in April 2023 after a shortage) and the absence of major system sellers.

• Accessory sales fell by 17% - slightly over 1 million different devices were sold in April 2024. DualSense was the top-selling accessory.

Source - GamesIndustry.biz

• More than 2,000 publishers and 9,000 games are on the platforms as of the end of March 2024.

• Sony's presentation includes the metric Monthly Active Consoles. According to this statistic, there were 97 million active PlayStation consoles worldwide in April 2024. Half of them are PS5s, and half are PS4s.

• Of the total number of hours played in April 2024 (3.8 billion), 63% (2.4 billion hours) are on the PlayStation 5. User engagement on the PS5 is significantly higher.

• The cumulative average user spending on the PlayStation 5 over 4 years is $731. This is 26% more than for the same period on the PS4 ($580). Almost all spending segments are growing - in-game purchases (+176%); service spending (+57%); peripheral spending (+34%). Only full game purchases have decreased - they are down 12% compared to the previous generation.

• GAAS projects and major annual releases have generated 51-53% of all PlayStation Store revenue for three consecutive fiscal years.

• 35% of PS Plus subscribers are subscribed to PS Plus Premium (+11% YoY) or Extra (+23% YoY).

• Sales of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 reached 11 million copies as of the end of April 2024. Helldivers II sold 12 million copies on PC and consoles as of May 5 this year.

• The company plans to launch live service games simultaneously on PS5 and PC. Single-player projects will be released on PC with a delay.

Source

Tune in next month for more updates! 

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