devtodev is helping you keep in touch with what’s happening in the game market. Every month we publish an overview of reports on the most popular games worldwide, top-grossing games, successful releases, favorite video game types, trends, etc. This overview is prepared by Dmitriy Byshonkov - the author of the GameDev Reports by devtodev Telegram channel. You can read the February and March reports.
Table of Content
- AARP: 45% of 50+ aged in the US are playing games
- Dead Island 2 reached 1M copies sold
- The GameDiscoverCo: The geography of PlayStation, Xbox & Steam users (2023)
- game: The German gaming market grew by 1% in 2022
- Adjoe & appinio: The German mobile gamer in 2023
- Resident Evil 4 Remake launch outperformed the original RE4 launch in the UK
- GSD: European game sales in Q1 2023 dropped by 11%; March numbers declined by 4%
- Liftoff: Casual Game Market in 2023
- StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: State of the Streaming market in March 2023
- data.ai: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in Q1 2023
- Circana: The US Gaming market Revenue dropped by 5% in March 2023
- Nexters: Misleading ads survey (2023)
- DappRadar & BGA: Activity in blockchain games in Q1 2023 declined
- StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: The streaming market in February 2023
- Omdia: Steam Deck sales will surpass 3M by the end of 2023
- Niko Partners: In 2023 twice more licenses will be issued in China compared to 2022
- Subway Surfers reached 4B downloads
- GSD & GfK: The UK gaming market grew in Q1 2023; March was unable to support the positive trend
- DFC: Gaming audience worldwide reached 3.7B
- Famitsu: Nintendo Switch returned the leadership in Japan in March 2023
- Konvoy Ventures: The Gaming Market will grow to $201B in 2023
- War Robots earned $750M in lifetime
- Newzoo: Who is playing Hogwarts Legacy
- Newzoo: Cloud Gaming Ecosystem Snapshot 2023
- Famitsu: PlayStation 5 outperformed Nintendo Switch by monthly sales in Japan for the first time
- UKIE: The UK Gaming market dipped in 2022 to £7.05B
- AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in March 2023
- AppsFlyer: Mobile Gaming Fraud in 2023
- Ampere Analysis: EA is the largest publisher by MAU on PlayStation & Xbox
- Gaming in Turkey: The Turkish gaming market fell hard by 47.9% in 2022 in dollars
AARP: 45% of 50+ aged in the US are playing games
Almost 7,800 people took part in the survey.
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The number of 50+ aged people playing games hasn’t increased much from 2019 (from 44% to 45% in 2022). But the engagement grew by 40% - from 8.5 hours per week to 12 hours on average.
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More than 80% of 50+ people are using mobile devices to play games. 30% of them are playing only on smartphones.
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The most common gaming partner for 50+ aged is their grandchildren. 53% have mentioned that they’re playing video games with grandkids.
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50+ gamers do prefer puzzles, card games, and word games.
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The percentage of paying users aged 50+ grew from 27% in 2019 to 38% in 2022. But the average spending decreased from $64 in 2019 to $49 in 2022.
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47% of spending in 2022 was on content, 38% on hardware, and 15% on accessories.
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62% of people aged 40 to 49 are playing games, which means that there will be more 50+ aged gamers in the future.
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The majority of 50+ aged gamers are playing games to unwind and relax (54%); to do a mental activity (46%); for joy (39%); to receive new emotions (23%).
AARP: 45% of 50+ aged in the US are playing games
Dead Island 2 reached 1M copies sold
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It took a game 3 days to reach this milestone.
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In the UK, the game became the third largest physical release after the Hogwarts Legacy and Resident Evil 4 Remake.
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Launch retail sales of Dead Island 2 are half of what RE4 Remake achieved.
The GameDiscoverCo: The geography of PlayStation, Xbox & Steam users (2023)
PlayStation
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37.2% of PlayStation's audience is based in the US.
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Europe is the second biggest market for PlayStation. The ratio “number of consoles owned to the population” in Europe is similar to the US.
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Saudi Arabia (4.5%) and UAE (1.2%) are quite huge in terms of user base. Great Resident Evil 4 Remake sales in the region show the importance of Arabic language localization.
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GameDiscoverCo is highlighting that Hong Kong and China are responsible for 3.7% of the audience. But due to the gray import, the exact number of consoles is unknown. For example, in The Callisto Protocol users from China are in the top-3 by volume.
Xbox
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The US is responsible for 40.6% of all users. The second region is the UK - 7.9% of all users.
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Xbox is very popular in Brazil (3rd region in sales, 6.9% of users from there) and Mexico (4.8% of users, 6th place).
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The Microsoft console is still struggling in the Japanese market. Only 1.1% of all Xbox users are from Japan - less than in Colombia.
Steam
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Steam is the most international platform. The US doesn’t have such a big difference from other countries (13.7% of users are from the US).
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China is second by volume of users (12.3%); Russia is third (9.7%).
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The GameDiscoverCo is suggesting keeping attention to Southeast Asia regions - 4.7% of the audience are in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand.
Overall numbers
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The overall gaming market value reached €9.87B. It’s 1% more than in 2021.
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Online services sales grew by 20% (to €866M); by 1% grew game and in-app sales (to €5.52B); by 3% declined hardware sales (to €3.49B).
Numbers by verticals
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Gaming sales decomposition shows that in-app purchases grew by 2% (to €4.46B) while game sales decreased by 1% (to €1.06B).
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Across all hardware sales, only PC Gaming sales showed growth of 14% to €1.1B. PC Accessories sales declined (-10% to €1.35B); console accessories (-7% to €284M); consoles themselves (-6% to €756M).
Players demography
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78% of German players are older than 18. The average age is 37.9 years.
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58% of the German population aged 6 to 69 is playing video games.
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48% of all gamers are female.
Adjoe & appinio: The German mobile gamer in 2023
The research was based on a survey of 1,000 people with an equal proportion of men and women.
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7 out of 10 German mobile gamers are using Android. The iOS share across Generation Z is around 50%, while the Android share across older generations reaches 75%.
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Almost 60% of mobile German gamers prefer playing 2-3 mobile games simultaneously.
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44% of the German gaming audience prefer casual games; 41% - strategies (favorite male genre); 38% - puzzles (favorite female genre).
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Only 17% of German gamers are playing paid games.
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Over 60% of mobile German gamers find new games through ads, which they see while playing current games.
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About 60% of the audience feels comfortable with personalized ads.
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39% of respondents are playing the game often if it does have Rewarded Ads. 27% of respondents mentioned that it leads to longer sessions.
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22% of German players stopped spending money on games. 14% started to play less. About 20% of gamers decided to switch from payments to Rewarded Ads.
Resident Evil 4 Remake launch outperformed the original RE4 launch in the UK
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Resident Evil 4 Remake sold 29% better than the original game released in March 2005 on GameCube. We’re speaking about physical versions only.
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However, Resident Evil 4 Remake sales are 23% less than Resident Evil’s Village and 38% less than Resident Evil 2 Remake.
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Out of three remakes released by Capcom, only Resident Evil 4 managed to outperform the original by physical sales.
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73% of launch physical sales of RE4 Remake came from PlayStation 5; 14% from Xbox consoles; 13% from PlayStation 4.
Game developer? Try devtodev analytics
GSD: European game sales in Q1 2023 dropped by 11%; March numbers declined by 4%
Q1 2023 results
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39M games were sold in Q1 2023 in Europe. It’s 11% lower than in Q1 2022.
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Hogwarts Legacy is the best-selling game of the quarter. Moreover, it’s the fastest-selling game in Europe after FIFA since 2017.
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In Q1 2023 1.5M consoles were sold in Europe (without the UK). It’s 41% more than during a similar period in 2022.
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PlayStation 5 sales increased by 369%. Nintendo Switch declined by 18%; Xbox Series S|X - by 10%.
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4.7M accessories have been sold in Q1 2023. An increase from the previous year was 5%.
March 2023 results
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13.6M games for PC & Consoles have been sold in Europe. It’s 4% lower than in 2022.
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Resident Evil 4 Remake topped the charts in March. After the first two weeks, sales numbers are worse than Resident Evil Village (-11%) and Resident Evil 2 Remake. However, sales numbers are better than RE3 Remake by 57%.
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In March, console sales in European countries (without the UK) reached 570k. An increase from the previous year is 67%.
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PlayStation 5 is the main console in the European market. Its sales have increased since March 2022 by 5 times.
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Nintendo Switch sales dropped by 19% YoY; Xbox Series S|X results also declined by 13%.
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1.5M accessories were sold in March 2023. It’s 13% more than a year before. The leader by sales is DualSense.
Liftoff: Casual Game Market in 2023
Data were collected from February 1 2022 to February 1, 2023. More than 390B impressions, 16.7B clicks, and 100M installs have been analyzed.
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An average CPI in casual games is $0.98. The price on Android is $0.63; on iOS - $2.23.
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An average D7 ROAS in casual games is 7.6%. On Android this number equals 7%; on iOS - 7.8%.
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The highest CPI is at the NA market - $3.59. EMEA shows a CPI price of $0.9; APAC - $0.76; LATAM - $0.55.
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However, the NA region shows the highest ROAS D7 - 8.1%. In EMEA the return is 6.5%; in APAC - 6.4%; in LATAM - 4.8%.
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Casual games (Liftoff includes hypercasual games here too) generate 86.9% of all downloads. Sports and racing games are generating 6.6%. Midcore games - 3.3%, casino titles - 3.2%.
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Interesting that 74.7% of all mid-core games downloads are coming from ads that are shown in casual titles.
Trends
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Only 2 successful Match-3 games have been released in the last two years - Garden Affairs and BTS Island.
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The share of downloads of hypercasual games decreased dramatically from 50% in Q1 2021 to a little above 30% in Q1 2023. More and more developers are moving from traditional hypercasual to hybrid-casual titles.
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Merge is the genre where the next revolution might happen.
2023-Casual-Gaming-Apps-Report-EN
StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: State of the Streaming market in March 2023
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The number of hours viewed on Twitch in Q1 2023 declined by 1% compared to Q4 2022.
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If we compare Q1 2023 results with Q1 2019, we’ll see a 95% growth in hours watched.
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However, the Twitch trend by hours viewed in 2023 is negative.
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Diablo IV reached top-10 by hours watched in March with 28M hours. Resident Evil 4 Remake was close with just 2% fewer hours.
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League of Legends (108M hours watched); GTA V (101M hours), and Valorant (84M hours) are the most popular games of March.
data.ai: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in Q1 2023
Revenue
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The revenue decline after 2022 has stopped. It’s now on a plateau.
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Three leaders by revenue compared to the previous quarter are the same - Honor of Kings, Candy Crush Saga, and Genshin Impact.
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Two old-new games are in the top 10 by revenue - Gardenscapes (jumped from #17 to #9), and Uma Musume Pretty Derby (#26 to #10).
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Gardenscapes increased its marketing spend in late 2022. Royal Match did the same - the paid UA increased from December to January by 2 times.
Downloads
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Subway Surfers, Garena Free Fire, and Candy Crush Saga are worldwide leaders in Q1 2023 by downloads.
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Attack Hole from Homa appeared in top downloads for the first time, Gardenscapes reached #8 (+41 positions), Going Balls is #9 (from #28), and Football League 2023 reached #10 (from #55).
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Street Fighter: Duel showed a successful launch, more than half of the downloads are from the US.
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Block Blast Adventure Master is in the top-5 by downloads in Germany, Singapore, South Korea, and Australia. That’s the freshest game out of the puzzles, which reached the top.
Circana: The US Gaming market Revenue dropped by 5% in March 2023
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The US market revenue in March 2023 reached $4.6B. It’s 5% lower than a year before.
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83% of the volume is coming from games ($3.83B). The decline from the previous year is 7%.
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Resident Evil 4 Remake replaced Hogwarts Legacy at the first position of the chart.
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Hardware sales, on the contrary, increased by 10% and reached $566M.
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PlayStation 5 is the best-selling console of the month in both unit and dollar sales. In fact, PlayStation 5 started to outperform PS4 numbers by sales dynamics.
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Xbox Series S|X is second by revenue, but Nintendo Switch is second by units sold.
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Accessories spending increased by 1% YoY and reached $239M. The black DualSense is the best-selling accessory of the month.
Nexters: Misleading ads survey (2023)
The survey has been made across the Nexters games users. 5,212 people participated, 62,39% of which are from the US; 24.58% from Japan; 9.48% from Europe (the majority are from Germany); and 3.28% - from Brazil.
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91% of users from the US notice misleading ads. In other countries, this varies from 71% to 77.2%.
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Almost 75% of users in Europe and the US stated that misleading ads look more fun than actual games they advertise.
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Despite the overall negative attitude to misleading ads, 35% to 46% of users (depending on the region) will give the game a chance after downloading. Despite the fact that it was different from the ad.
Nexters-Misleading-Ads-Report-Mar-2023
DappRadar & BGA: Activity in blockchain games in Q1 2023 declined
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791.4k UAW (Unique Active Wallets) have been registered in blockchain games in Q1 2023. This is 8.58% lower than in the previous quarter.
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The share of games in the overall amount of UAW in Q1 2023 is 45.6% - this is higher than in Q4 2022. DappRadar sees this as a bullish signal, but my humble opinion is that other verticals just declined more.
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The top-5 games by UAW in Q1 2023 - Alien Worlds (223k), Splinterlands (127k), Planet IX (62k), Nine Chronicles (22k), Upland (21k).
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$739M has been invested in blockchain games in Q1 2023.
StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: The streaming market in February 2023
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The Twitch audience consisted, after the ups and downs of 2021. The number of watched hours on the platform is in the same range since February 2022.
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Hogwarts Legacy debuted as #5 on the Twitch chart. The game is even higher if we compare the games by their popularity after the first week of launch. Hogwarts Legacy is third behind the Lost Ark and Elden Ring.
Omdia: Steam Deck sales will surpass 3M by the end of 2023
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Omdia’s analysts calculated that in 2022 1.62M systems were sold.
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It’s fair to say that Steam’s strategy lies beyond just hardware sales. This year the company will release SteamOS, and some brands have already announced handheld devices of the Steam Deck format.
Niko Partners: In 2023 twice more licenses will be issued in China compared to 2022
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According to the analytical agency, by the end of the year, the Chinese government will have to issue more than 1,100 licenses.
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In the first quarter, 288 licenses were already issued (261 - for Chinese games; 27 - for foreign ones). This is 56% of the total volume of 2022.
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Despite the fact that the volume of license issuance is unlikely to ever return to its pre-2018 indicators, Niko Partners analysts think that current activities are our new reality. And it's better than a year or two ago.
Subway Surfers reached 4B downloads
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Subway Surfers became the most downloaded game of 2022 despite its release in 2012.
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The game has become viral in TikTok, where users used it as a background for different stories. Which positively affected downloads.
GSD & GfK: The UK gaming market grew in Q1 2023; March was unable to support the positive trend
Q1 2023 results
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Game sales increased by 1% compared to the previous year. Overall sales almost reached 8M copies.
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Hogwarts Legacy was the main revenue driver for the quarter. The game already surpassed last year's best-sellers - LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga and Elden Ring.
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Console sales rose by 24.2%. PlayStation 5 was leading the growth with sales up by 180%. Sony was responsible for more than half of all consoles sold.
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Nintendo Switch dropped in sales by 25%, however, ended in second place. Xbox Series S|X sales were down by 18%.
March 2023 results
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2.7M game copies have been sold in March 2023. It’s 3% lower than a year before.
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Resident Evil 4 became the best-selling game of the month. 65% of sales came from PlayStation versions; 20% - from Xbox; 15% - from PC.
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Hogwarts Legacy ended the month in the second position.
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Console sales dropped by 3% compared to the previous month. Growth to the previous year is 23%. 138k consoles have been sold.
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PlayStation 5 sales decreased by 2% to February numbers. Nintendo Switch showed a slight growth; Xbox Series S|X dropped by 10%.
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616k accessories were sold in March 2023. It’s 20% more than in February, but 3.7% less than in March 2022.
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Surprisingly, DualSense wasn’t the best-selling accessory. Xbox Wireless Controller took the #1 place thanks to discounts.
DFC: Gaming audience worldwide reached 3.7B
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However, the agency highlights that only 10% can be named as a core audience.
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This means that 300M people buy PCs or consoles specifically for games. The majority of this audience is based in the US, Western Europe, and Japan.
Famitsu: Nintendo Switch returned the leadership in Japan in March 2023
Famitsu is tracking retail sales only.
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After the February domination of PlayStation 5, Japanese consumers returned to Nintendo Switch in March 2023. They bought 231k Nintendo consoles versus 223k Sony’s.
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Nintendo sold 439k retail copies in March 2023. The closest competitors are Capcom (190k), and Koei Tecmo (166k). Nintendo's share of the physical games market is 31.5%.
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The best-selling game of the month was the remake of Resident Evil 4, which sold 175k copies (distribution between PS5 and PS4 is almost equal). Kirby: Return To Dream Land DX is second with 174k copies sold.
Konvoy Ventures: The Gaming Market will grow to $201B in 2023
General market numbers
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The fund analysts forecast that the gaming market will grow by 9% in 2023 to $201B. Konvoy Ventures is among the few companies that have detected gaming market growth in 2022, not a decline.
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By the end of 2027, the gaming market is prognosed to reach $283B.
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3.2B people have been playing games in 2022. 55% of them are in the Asia-Pacific region. North America has 7% of the gaming population, and Europe - has 13%.
Investment climate
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The VC investment by size and the number of deals returned to pre-2021 levels.
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Big companies have $48B in cash on their balance. Part of this money will be spent on M&A deals.
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Asia is the leader in investment activity. The number of deals in the US is the same, but the volume is lower. Investment activity in Europe is declining.
Konvoy Ventures: The Gaming Market will grow to $201B in 2023
War Robots earned $750M in lifetime
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The game achieved this milestone in 9 years.
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War Robots universe will continue to develop. PC/Console game War Robots: Frontiers has been announced already, but MY.GAMES executives hint on new announcements soon.
Newzoo: Who is playing Hogwarts Legacy
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The game sold 12M copies in the first two weeks after release.
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In February 2023 Hogwarts Legacy became the #5 game by MAU on PC and consoles. Only Fortnite, CoD: Modern Warfare II, Minecraft, and Grand Theft Auto V had more monthly users.
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68% of the Hogwarts Legacy audience is playing on the PC. 23% on PlayStation, and 9% on Xbox. The situation will change when the game is released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
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19% of PlayStation 5 owners played Hogwarts Legacy in February.
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Top-5 countries by MAU are the US, Germany, the UK, Russia, and France. More than 70% of the audience is from the US and Western Europe. Emerging markets (LATAM & MENA) are responsible only for 10% of the MAU.
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34% of Hogwarts Legacy players are female. Most players are from 10 to 17 and 25 to 34 years old.
Newzoo: Cloud Gaming Ecosystem Snapshot 2023
Famitsu: PlayStation 5 outperformed Nintendo Switch by monthly sales in Japan for the first time
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It happened in February this year.
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366,9 thousand PlayStation 5s were sold in February 2023. It’s 457% higher compared to the previous year.
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Nintendo Switch sales dropped by 41% YoY to 221 thousand copies.
UKIE: The UK Gaming market dipped in 2022 to £7.05B
The decline to 2021 is 5.6%. However, analysts are highlighting that the revenue in 2022 is 17% higher than in pre-pandemic 2019.
Games
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Revenue from software sales increased by 0.44% to £4.57B.
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Mobile grew by 11% to £1.43B, and digital sales on PC are showing positive dynamics (+2.2% to £660M). Digital sales on consoles are not so great (-4.7% to £1.98B), retail sales are struggling (-4.3% to £489M), and the pre-owned games market is narrowing (-37% to £21.3M).
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16% of the UK software market revenue is generated by games created in the UK.
Hardware
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Hardware sales in the UK declined by 19% to £2.16B.
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Consoles (-27% to £832M) and accessories (-15% to £396M) have experienced the largest decline.
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PC hardware sales dipped by 14% to £760M. Best yet negative results showed VR devices (-6.6% to £171M).
Game culture
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Revenue from gaming culture items - films, toys, books - increased by 27% to £316M.
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Toys and merchandise sales increased by 7.7% to £196M. Books and magazines also increased by 17% to £13.9M.
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Film revenue in the UK in 2022 was £54.8M. Different events brought another £4.35M.
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The only declining segment of this category was streaming. Revenue declined by 4.8% to £47.4. It’s explained through the fact that more people moved from virtual experiences to real ones.
AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in March 2023
Revenue
- Uma Musume: Pretty Derby got back to the top 10. The game about half-horse half-girls running on the racecourse earned $65.3M in March.
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Honor of Kings, Candy Crush Saga, and Genshin Impact were the top-grossers of the last month.
Downloads
- The most downloaded game on iOS is Eggy Party (7.5M downloads); on Android - Subway Surfers (20.9M downloads).
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DIY Paper Doll is the only new game in the chart. It’s a stylist simulator with 11.6M downloads in March.
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The growth in downloads has been shown by Going Balls from Supersonic and Indian Bikes Driving 3D from Rohit Gaming Studio.
AppsFlyer: Mobile Gaming Fraud in 2023
The research is based on 22B installs from January 2022 to February 2023, and 24 thousand apps with 2000+ monthly installs.
General numbers
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$5.4B is the overall damage from the fraud activity.
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In the second half of 2022, iOS fraud installs increased by 40% compared to the year's first half. On Android, the growth was 46% in the same period.
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Games are the most fraud-protected verticals. Fraud numbers in games are 6x times lower than in non-gaming apps.
Fraud in games
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The fraud damage to the gaming industry in 2022 is valued at $206M.
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Leaders by fraudulent traffic are Europe, APAC, and North America.
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There are relatively low fraudulent numbers in the hypercasual and casual segments - around 1-2%. However, there has been a growth in hypercasual in recent months.
- About 4% - 7.5% of fraud traffic in mid-core on iOS. On Android, it’s a little lower - 2.5% - 4%.
- Casino games are the most fraud-heavy segment. In the first months of 2023, fraud installs reached 12.72% on Android and 9.3% on iOS.
Fraud methods in gaming
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Bots are the main fraud activity in games.
- Fake publishers are popular in the hypercasual segment.
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Clicks spam is heavily used in mid-core and casino games.
A benchmark by country and verticals is available in the full version of the report
Ampere Analysis: EA is the largest publisher by MAU on PlayStation & Xbox
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16.4% of the overall MAU on consoles of Sony & Microsoft played EA games in February 2023.
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Epic Games is the closest competitor with 11.4% MAU.
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EA leadership is supported by leading positions in sports franchises like FIFA 23 and NHL 23.
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FIFA 23 players have been returning to the game for 10 days in February. Final Fantasy XIV Online and Genshin Impact are a little behind (9 days per month).
- Microsoft in the first months of 2023 is showing better MAU results than Sony. On average, in the last half a year, it’s outperformed the competitor by this metric.
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If the deal with Activision-Blizzard happens, the Microsoft MAU on consoles will be 2.5x higher than Sony MAU.
Gaming in Turkey: The Turkish gaming market fell hard by 47.9% in 2022 in dollars
The market
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The overall market size is $625M, which is 47.9% lower than the year before. The main reason for it is a lira devaluation.
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The mobile gaming market generated $275M of revenue (-55.64% YoY); PC - $175M (-41.67% YoY); consoles - same $175M (-37.5% YoY).
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81% of the adult population of Turkey is playing mobile games. The ratio of female and male mobile players is almost equal - 49% to 51%. Of group ages, mobile players are divided as follows - 14-29 years (37%); 30-49 years (44%); 50-65 years (19%).
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The number of gamers increased in 2022 to 44M. 42M of them are playing on mobile devices. 25M are playing on PC, and around 15M are on consoles.
Investment
- The number of gaming startups in Turkey in 2022 decreased by 2 times - from 121 companies in 2021 to 63 in 2022.
- However, 23 investment deals with an overall size of $424.7M were done in Turkey in 2022. It’s 2 times higher than in 2021 in dollars.
Turkey game market report 2022
