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 April and May reports.
Contents
- AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in May 2024
- Newzoo: Top 20 PC/Console Games of April 2024 by Revenue and MAU
- ESA: Facts about the US Gaming Industry in 2024
- SocialPeta & SuperSonic: Marketing in Casual & Puzzle Games in Q1 2024
- Sensor Tower: Mobile (Gaming) Market in Q1'24
- Niko Partners: Asia and MENA Game Markets accounted for 46.5% of the Global Market in 2023
- Newzoo: How Women Play Games in 2024
- Games & Numbers (29.05.24 - 11.06.24)
- XYZ School: 74% of Russian Gamers are pirating games
- VG Insights: Fallout TV Series generated over $80M in Incremental Revenue for Bethesda
- Fandom: People and Games in 2024
- GlobalData: The Cloud Gaming Segment Will Grow 7 Times by 2030
- There have already been more layoffs in 2024 than in 2023
- GSD & GfK: V Rising Leads the UK Market in May 2024
- Tenjin: Ad Monetization in Mobile Games in Q1'24
- Famitsu: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door topped the Japanese retail chart in May 2024
- Video Game Insights: How much money has PlayStation made by releasing games on Steam?
- Sensor Tower: AAA Marketing in 2023
- Take This & Nielsen: In games with toxic communities, people spend less money
- GameAnalytics: Key Roblox & Games for Roblox metrics in 2023
- Sensor Tower: Hybrid-Casual Market in 2023
- Games & Numbers (12.06.24 - 25.06.24)
- GSD & GfK: Game sales in Europe in May 2024 fell by 17%
- StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: The Streaming Market in May 2024
- Steam in 2024
- Appfigures & AppMagic: iOS Ports of Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil, and Death Stranding are far from success
- Steam users spent $19B on games they never launched
- StreamHatchet: The Release of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree significantly increased Elden Ring’s popularity on Streaming Platforms
- What's the gamepads usage in Steam
AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in May 2024
AppMagic provides revenue data excluding store commissions and taxes.
Revenue
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Honor of Kings continues to show consistently impressive results. In May 2024, the game earned $152 million, with 98% of the revenue coming from the iOS version in China.
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Monopoly GO! has lost some ground. The hit from Scopely finished May in 4th place with $93.2 million. Remember that we don’t see all the money, as the game has a webshop.
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Tencent launched Dungeon Fighter Online Mobile in China, and the game quickly entered the 9th place on the chart with $63.7 million in revenue in less than 2 weeks of operation (the game was launched on May 21). Since we are talking about China, we are only considering iOS revenue.
Downloads
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Solo Leveling: Arise from Netmarble debuted in second place in the list of the most downloaded projects with 18.2 million downloads. The game earned $39.7 million in May (14th place).
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The first place in downloads is Pizza Ready!, with 21.9 million installations.
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Squad Busters narrowly missed making it into the top 10. The game is in 11th place with 10.9 million installs – in just 3 days.
Newzoo: Top 20 PC/Console Games of April 2024 by Revenue and MAU
Newzoo tracks the USA, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France data.
Revenue - All Platforms
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Fortnite, the Call of Duty series, and EA Sports FC 24 were the revenue leaders in April.
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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor managed to climb 59 positions to reach 9th place in revenue. A 55% discount on Xbox helped.
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Diablo IV saw significant growth in April, taking 5th place in revenue. The positive changes were influenced by recent updates.
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Manor Lords is the only new entry in the top 20. The game, released by Hooded Horse, debuted at 16th place on the chart.
Revenue - by Platforms
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Manor Lords (#5) and Content Warning (#12) were the main new entries in April on PC. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Cyberpunk 2077, Dead Island 2, and Fallout 76 also showed good performance.
- Three new entries appeared on the PlayStation chart, two of which were from Microsoft: Sea of Thieves (#7 in platform revenue) and Grounded (#20). Stellar Blade took 12th place.
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There were no new entries on Xbox, and the sales dynamics mirrored other platforms.
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On Nintendo Switch, everything remained stable, with Grounded being the only new game in the top 20 revenue chart.
MAU - All Platforms
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The main significant change in the MAU ranking was the appearance of Fallout 4. The game jumped 81 positions to take 13th place, thanks to the release of the series.
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Helldivers II started to decline. The game dropped 3 positions in the overall ranking.
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The leaders remain the same: Fortnite, Call of Duty, Minecraft, Roblox, and Grand Theft Auto V.
MAU - by Platforms
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Content Warning entered the top 20 MAU on PC, taking 19th place.
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Fallout 4 took 13th place in MAU on PlayStation in April.
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On Xbox, besides Fallout 4's success, Fallout 76 also saw a significant rise in the rankings.
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There were almost no changes on Nintendo Switch, as the PC/Console-first Fallout games (Fallout Shelter is not it) have not been released on this platform.
ESA: Facts about the US Gaming Industry in 2024
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The US gaming market in 2023 amounted to $57.2 billion. $48 billion was spent on content; $6.6 billion on gaming hardware; $2.6 billion on gaming accessories
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ESA estimates that the global economic contribution of the American gaming industry in 2023 was $101 billion. The contribution to the US GDP in 2023 was $66 billion.
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190.6 million Americans play games. 61% of the US population plays games for over 1 hour weekly.
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The average age of a gamer today is 36 years. Twenty years ago, the average age was 29 years. The percentage of gamers over 50 years old is 29% - in 2004, it was only 17%. Meanwhile, the rate of gamers under 18 years old decreased from 34% in 2004 to 24% in 2024.
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53% of gamers are male; 46% are female. 1% identify as non-binary. 11% identify as LGBT.
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People mainly play to relax and have fun. Overall, the American audience believes that games help cope with stress; develop social skills; improve problem-solving skills; and enhance cognitive functions.
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78% of gamers play on mobile devices. PCs and consoles are more popular among Generations Z and Alpha. VR devices are most interesting to millennials.
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The female audience is larger on mobile devices, while the male audience is larger on PCs, consoles, and VR.
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78% of American households played on at least one device during the year.
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19% of players over 8 years old have mobile devices, PCs, and consoles at home.
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55% of players play with others every week. 88% generally play games with an online component. In 1999, this was only 18%.
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Games have become an important element of social interaction with friends and family.
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72% of parents play games with their children. They note that it is fun (58%); helps spend quality time together (51%); and is a great opportunity to socialize with the child (49%).
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63% of players believe that games offer the greatest value for their money compared to streaming services, music, movies, and books.
SocialPeta & SuperSonic: Marketing in Casual & Puzzle Games in Q1 2024
General Trends
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The number of advertisers in Q1’24 increased by 28.9% YoY to 51.3k.
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The average number of creatives per advertiser dropped by 18% to 109.
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In Q1’24, the share of new creatives in the market was 74.7% - slightly below the 2023 average. The share of advertisers with new creatives was 84.2% - lower than in the past two years.
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63.92% of creatives in Q1’24 were videos; 23.37% were static images; 6.14% were Playable ads; 5.66% were HTML creatives; 0.91% were carousel ads.
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The share of iOS advertisers has been growing for three consecutive quarters - in Q1’24, the share of iOS advertisers was 31.9%.
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The number of advertisers in the casual and puzzle segments increased by 0.83% and 2.1% respectively in Q1’24. The number of creatives grew by 1.97% YoY in the casual segment and by 1.17% in the puzzle segment.
Casual and Puzzle Games in Q1’24
❗️SocialPeta has its taxonomy. For example, Legend of Mushroom (Idle RPG) or 1945 (shoot ’em up) are classified as casual games. I would argue.
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Legend of Mushroom, Magic Card, and 1945 led the casual segment by advertising on iOS. On Android, the leaders were Monopoly GO!, Braindom, and Block Blast!
- The top puzzle advertisers were Block Blast!, Block Puzzle, and Royal Match on iOS; and Braindom, Block Blast!, and Garden Affairs on Android.
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The most competitive markets for casual games are Europe, the US, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.
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Speaking of the casual market, the share of advertisers on iOS is 20.9%. For puzzles, the situation is quite different - 37.6% of advertisers are on iOS.
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The most popular languages for ad creatives in casual (and puzzle) games are English, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Korean.
Marketing Approaches of Top Genre Games
- Royal Match: At the end of 2023, Royal Match had more than 4,500 creatives in operation. The average number of creatives on iOS was 1.35 times higher than on Android. 94.86% of all creatives were videos. The main markets for the project were the USA, the UK, Australia, Japan, and Canada. However, since the beginning of 2024, the number of creatives on iOS has been decreasing, while on Android it has been increasing.
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Block Blast!: At the end of 2023, Block Blast! had more than 8,000 active creatives. There were 2.5 times more creatives on Android than on iOS.
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Twisted Tangle by Rollic Games: This game was primarily advertised on Android for a long time. Growth on iOS occurred almost a year after testing. The main market for advertising was the USA.
Sensor Tower: Mobile (Gaming) Market in Q1'24
Sensor Tower only accounts for iOS revenue and downloads in China. Revenue figures are Gross, meaning they include commissions, taxes, etc.
Overall Mobile Market Condition
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The mobile market has been steadily growing since the second quarter of 2023. In Q1’24, it reached $35.8 billion, showing a year-over-year (YoY) growth of 9.5%. Non-gaming apps experienced a YoY increase of 19.4%.
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The total number of downloads decreased by 3.5% compared to Q1’23, falling to 34 billion. Non-gaming apps saw a slight decline of 1.3%.
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The largest mobile markets by revenue in the first quarter of 2024 were the USA ($12.4 billion, +16% YoY), China ($6 billion, +4% YoY), Japan ($4.1 billion, -17% YoY), South Korea ($1.6 billion, +5% YoY), and the UK ($1.1 billion, +28% YoY).
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In terms of downloads, the top markets were India (5.93 billion, -9% YoY), the USA (3.06 billion, -4% YoY), Brazil (2.05 billion, -2% YoY), Indonesia (1.83 billion, +3% YoY), and China (1.76 billion, +2% YoY).
Gaming Market
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The mobile gaming market in Q1’24 reached $20.3 billion, the highest figure in a year, representing a YoY growth of 2.9%.
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User spending on iOS games increased from $12.3 billion in Q1’23 to $13 billion in Q1’24. Conversely, Google Play saw a decrease from $7.4 billion in Q1’23 to $7.3 billion in Q1’24.
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Game downloads are decreasing faster than the overall mobile market, with a YoY decline of 6.8%. In Q1’24, games accounted for 12.8 billion downloads. However, this is the first quarter in a year showing positive quarter-on-quarter dynamics.
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The decline in game downloads is solely on Android, dropping from 11.8 billion in Q1’23 to 10.8 billion in Q1’24. The situation on iOS remains stable.
❗️The overall trend of non-gaming apps capturing user attention from games continues. This trend is slightly masked by the success of MONOPOLY GO!.
Gaming Genres by Revenue
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Top growth: Lifestyle games (+36% YoY to $420 million in Q1’24), casino games (+34% YoY to $3.025 billion in Q1’24, largely due to MONOPOLY GO!), and puzzle games (+17% YoY to $2.912 billion).
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Top declines: Arcade games (-22% YoY to $500 million in Q1’24), sports games (-15% YoY to $670 million in Q1’24), and action games (-15% YoY to $469 million in Q1’24).
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In absolute terms, RPGs saw the most significant decline, falling by 13% in Q1’24 compared to the previous quarter, dropping from $5.25 billion to $4.57 billion. Revenue for this genre fell by 24% in Japan, 10% in the USA, 9% in China, and 3% in South Korea.
Gaming Genres by Downloads
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Top growth: Racing games (+11% YoY), shooters (+9% YoY), and strategy games (+5% YoY).
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Top declines: Arcade games (-17% YoY), sports games (-16% YoY), and Lifestyle games (-15% YoY). It's important to note that the top four genres in terms of downloads are declining.
Most Successful Games in Q1’24
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MONOPOLY GO! set a record for mobile games in terms of quarterly revenue, earning $770M. The previous leader was Honor of Kings with $765M in Q2’21. No other mobile game has crossed the $600 million mark in a quarter, and only seven projects in history have earned more than $500 million in a quarter.
❗️ When discussing Honor of Kings' revenue, we do not count Android stores. Similarly, MONOPOLY GO!'s full revenue is not visible, as some of the money comes to Scopely via off-store methods.
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Garena Free Fire secured the top spot for downloads in Q1’24. Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle and Pizza Ready! saw significant rises in the rankings.
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Last War: Survival Game, Legend of Mushroom, and CrossFire: Legends were the fastest-growing projects by revenue in Q1’24.
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In terms of downloads, the most significant gains were made by Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle, Pizza Ready!, and Help Me: Tricky Story. Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile started at the 4th place in the growth rankings and ended up at the 23rd place in the overall download rankings.
Digital Advertising Spend
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In Q1’24, advertising spend increased in North America, Latin America, and Western Europe, with growth rates of 15-30% compared to Q1’23, depending on the market.
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However, spending on game advertising fell in the USA and Canada by 19% and 24% respectively.
❗️The decline in advertising spending in the USA in Q1'24 will impact future gaming revenue.
Niko Partners: Asia and MENA Game Markets accounted for 46.5% of the Global Market in 2023
Niko Partners tracks 13 markets in the regions. East Asia includes Japan and South Korea. SEA-6 includes Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. MENA-3 includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. India and China are counted separately.
- In 2023, the volume of the aforementioned markets reached $85.5 billion. This is 46.5% of the total industry size ($183.7 billion).
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It is expected that by 2028, the market volume of these countries will reach $97.1 billion. The fastest growth will be in India (+11.1% CAGR); MENA-3 (+8.3% CAGR) and SEA-6 (+6.7% CAGR).
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In 2024, the following revenue distribution among the analysed regions is expected: China - 56.9%; East Asia - 33.4%; SEA-6 - 6.3%; MENA-3 - 2.4%; India - 1.1%.
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In these countries in 2023, there were 1.6 billion players. By 2028, the number will grow to 2 billion. The fastest growth will be in India (+10% CAGR); MENA-3 (+4.1% CAGR) and SEA-6 (+3.7% CAGR).
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Among the 13 countries, China is expected to have 42.9% of all players in 2024; India - 30.2%; SEA-6 - 17%; East Asia - 5.8%; MENA-3 - 4.2%.
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In 2023, Asia and the MENA regions accounted for 57.8% of the total mobile gaming revenue.
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These regions accounted for 50.4% of the global PC market in 2023.
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Niko Partners notes that their latest research signals an increase in gaming activity in Asia - the number of hours spent gaming increased by 36.2% YoY. There is a recovery after a 10% decline in 2023.
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In the reporting markets, in 2023, 93.7% of users played on mobile devices; 35.1% on PC; and 4.9% on consoles. By 2028, these 13 countries are expected to have 1.87 billion mobile players; 606 million PC gamers, and 100 million console players.
Newzoo: How Women Play Games in 2024
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72% of all female online population play games. For males, this figure is 81%.
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45% of all gamers are female. Half of these women actively spend money on games.
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36% of women who play games consider themselves gamers.
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Only 23% of females consider themselves hardcore gamers. The majority (44%) identify as casual players.
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There is a correlation based on the platform used. Among women who play on mobile devices, more identify as casual players. On PCs and consoles, both women and men more often identify as mid-core and hardcore gamers.
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44% of female gamers play games exclusively on mobile devices. Among men, only 27% play exclusively on mobile devices.
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Only 18% of women play sports games, even though this genre is the 4th most popular among men.
- Star Citizen fundraising has surpassed $700 million, with more than 5.2 million donations. In August 2023, the news broke that $600 million had been raised.
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Blizzard Entertainment boasted that over 100 million people have played games from the Diablo series.
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Dragon’s Dogma 2 sales have reached 3 million copies. The first 2.5 million copies were sold within 2 weeks of release (the game was released on March 22 this year).
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Content Warning has sold 2.2 million copies in 2 months. The total number of players has exceeded 8.8 million (the game was initially distributed for free).
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Marvel Rivals already has over a million wishlists on Steam and EGS.
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The Octopath Traveler series has surpassed 4 million copies sold. Both parts of the game were recently launched on Xbox Game Pass.
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Songs of Conquest has sold 500 million copies. The game was released in early access on May 10, 2022, and recently had a full release.
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Hypercharge: Unboxed sold over 50,000 copies in its first week of sales on Xbox.
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The retro game portable console Evercade reported selling its millionth cartridge. It took the company 4 years to achieve this.
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Fallout 76 has reached 20 million users. In December last year, the number of players was 17 million. The DAU for Fallout games has soared by 600% following the success of the TV series. Todd Howard said he had never seen such a growth before.
- MultiVersus successfully returned to Steam with 153,000 concurrent users at launch. Now, the CCU has stabilized at 17,000.
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The free Silent Hill: The Short Message has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times.
Mobile Games
- Rise of Kingdoms revenue has exceeded $3.5 billion. 25.6% of all money came from the USA; 14.4% from China; 12.6% from South Korea. South Korea is the leader in RPD (revenue per download) ($142) and ARPDAU (average revenue per daily active user) ($5). Following are China (RPD - $6; ARPDAU - $4.6) and the USA (RPD - $62; ARPDAU - $3.3).
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Dungeon & Fighter Mobile successfully launched in China. In the first week starting from May 21, the game earned $66 million on iOS alone, and revenue from both platforms exceeded $140 million (according to Niko Partners); the game was downloaded by 2.4 million users. In South Korea, the game has been available since March 2022, and in just over two years, it has earned more than $185.6 million.
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Squad Busters earned $1.1 million on its first day (data from Sensor Tower). On the same day, the game was downloaded 8.8 million times. According to AppMagic, in the first week, the game earned $10.66 million (excluding platform fees and taxes). Yet, Eric Seufert doesn't believe those numbers are real pointing out that Squad Busters had 40M+ pre-regs.
XYZ School: 74% of Russian Gamers are Pirating Games
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Only in the first quarter of 2024, people downloaded content for free worth 118B roubles ($1.32 billion). This is more than double the amount spent on licensed content during the same period.
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On average, a pirate downloaded games worth 6,800 rubles ($76) per quarter. 54% of users downloaded no more than 3 copies of games.
❗️ Experts attribute the increase in piracy to the exit of Western companies from the Russian market and the unavailability of purchases using Russian cards. For many users, piracy is a “response” to publishers who do not want to take their money.
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Meanwhile, legally, in the first quarter of 2024, Russian users purchased goods worth 49 billion rubles ($0.55 billion). Helldivers II, Baldur’s Gate II, and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader are leading charts.
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The marketplace Ozon reported that year-on-year sales of gaming products in Russia grew by 71% in the first quarter of 2024.
❗️ Some purchases are in a grey area and are not visible to analysts, as Russian users actively buy games on Steam from other regions (Kazakstan, Türkiye); in the PS Store - in Türkiye; on Xbox - in Argentina.
VG Insights: Fallout TV Series generated over $80M in Incremental Revenue for Bethesda
VGI analysts have calculated the growth of gaming metrics for the Fallout series and forecasted a tail until September (in their opinion, the situation will stabilize by then). Fallout Shelter was not included in the analysis.
- It is expected that after the series' release, Bethesda will sell additionally two million copies of Fallout 4 and 1-1.5 million copies of Fallout 76. This translates to $35-40 million in revenue after platform fees.
- The daily active users (DAU) in Fallout 76 increased from 100-200 thousand users to over 1 million after the series' release. VGI analysts expect this to bring Bethesda an additional $10-15 million. However, they note that the new audience is more casual, which means the average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) will be lower.
- VGI estimates the IP licensing deal with Amazon at $30 million, drawing parallels with The Lord of the Rings licensing.
❗️ Here, I would refrain from making any assumptions.
- VGI estimates the total economic impact of the series' release on Bethesda's gaming products to be $80 million. Including license fees, which size we do not know.
- To understand the influence, Fallout 4 sold copies worth $750 million on the first day after release. Over its lifetime, it has earned around $1.5 billion on all platforms. Thus, the TV series release impacted game sales by 1.5% of the total amount. Here we’re speaking of Fallout 4 only.
Fandom: People and Games in 2024
The research is based on a survey of more than 5,000 participants from around the world. It is important to note that the Fandom audience is already engaged with games.
- 54% of users play games to relax; 46% to create something new and express themselves; 40% to achieve new goals.
- The "creative" motivation has grown the most over the past year—by 10%. People have started to pay more attention to this aspect (or the generations of players for whom this is important have begun to participate in such surveys).
- Fandom identifies three factors in games that affect user engagement: personalization, large open worlds, and constant updates. Games with at least one of these components make up 78% of the top 50 projects on Fandom. They have 60% more engagement than projects without these features.
❗️ Fandom is a service for creating Wiki pages for games and more.
- 80% of people note that their gaming personality differs from their real-life one. 64% believe that it's easier to be themselves in games.
- Meanwhile, 32% of respondents note that they would like to better reflect their virtual self in real life.
GlobalData: The Cloud Gaming Segment Will Grow 7 Times by 2030
- In 2023, only 6% of gamers worldwide were subscribed to cloud gaming services. The market size was estimated by the company at $3 billion, and the user base at 184 million users.
❗️According to the methodology, this user base includes Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. For many of these subscribers, cloud gaming is not the main feature. So, in reality, the numbers are lower.
- GlobalData forecasts that by 2030, the cloud gaming market will grow to $22 billion. There will be 687 million users worldwide.
- GlobalData analysts are confident that cloud gaming is set for explosive growth and compare it to music and video streaming.
❗️I, however, think that comparing the consumption formats of movies and music with games is incorrect. Therefore, direct parallels should not be drawn.
- In 2022, GlobalData forecasted that the cloud gaming market would grow to $30 billion by 2030. In 2021, the market size was estimated by the company to be $2 billion.
It’s 35,11% CAGR that was expected in 2022; and 38,95% CAGR that GlobalData forecasts now. In reality, cloud gaming has shown a 22,47% CAGR between 2021 and 2023. Still impressive, but growth from the low numbers is always easier.
There have already been more layoffs in 2024 than in 2023
- 10,800 professionals have lost their jobs in the first half of 2024, according to data from Game Industry Layoffs.
- Throughout the entire year of 2023, 10,500 people lost their jobs.
- The company with the most layoffs this year is Microsoft, with 2,150 people (from Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, etc.); followed by Unity with 1,800 people, and PlayStation with 900 people.
GSD & GfK: V Rising Leads the UK Market in May 2024
Game Sales
- A total of 1.85 million copies of games for PC and consoles were sold in the UK. This is 21% less than the previous year.
- V Rising topped the chart after exiting Early Access. The game was released on PlayStation 5 on June 11.
- Fallout 4, which was in first place last month, dropped to 4th place.
- Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut soared to 6th place due to its release on PC. This is the second-largest PC launch for Sony after the release of Helldivers II, and the largest from a first-party studio. After the first two weeks of sales, the game is outperforming Spider-Man: Remastered in terms of sales dynamics.
Hardware Sales
- Less than 65,000 consoles were sold in the UK in May. This is a decrease of 10% from the previous month and 33% from the previous year.
- PlayStation 5 leads the chart, but its sales have also declined. Year-over-year (YoY), sales are down 13%.
- The biggest impact on the statistics was due to the decline in sales of the Nintendo Switch. In May last year, the console sold well thanks to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
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Xbox Series S|X was the third best-selling console in May. Sales fell by 9%.
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Over 475,000 accessories were sold in the UK in May. This is 12.6% less than in April but 5% higher than in May of the previous year. The top-selling accessory was the DualSense controller.
Tenjin: Ad Monetization in Mobile Games in Q1'24
The research is based on 146 billion ad impressions from January 1 to March 31, 2024. eCPM data is based on 6 billion ad impressions. Applications for children were excluded from the sample.
- In 2024, iOS accounts for 41% of all ad revenue. In 2019, the platform had 63%. Such significant changes occurred largely due to the introduction of ATT.
❗️Tenjin advises increasing ATT opt-in rates to boost ad revenue on iOS.
iOS - Q1’24 Results
- 55% of all ad revenue on iOS comes from the USA. Following are Japan (11%); the United Kingdom (6%); Russia (6%); and Canada and Germany (3% each).
- The most popular ad networks on iOS are AppLovin (37%); Unity Ads (16%); Google Admob (15%); Mintegral (11%); ironSource (9%).
Android - Q1’24 Results
- The USA also dominates on Android with 33% of all ad revenue. Russia is in second place (9%), Japan in third (7%), Brazil in fourth (5%), and Germany in fifth (4%).
- Among the ad networks on Android, the leading positions are held by Google Admob (28%); AppLovin (24%); Unity Ads (13%); Mintegral (11%); ironSource (5%).
eCPM - Benchmarks in Q1’24
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Banners - On iOS, the highest eCPM is in Japan ($1.25); South Korea ($0.85), and Russia ($0.83). On Android, it is in the USA ($1.22); South Korea ($1.17), and Japan ($1.09).
- Interstitial ads - On iOS, the leaders are the USA ($19.62); Australia ($16.53), and Japan ($15.18). On Android, it is the USA ($19.62), Japan ($15.18), and Canada ($13.17).
- Rewarded Ads - The highest eCPM on iOS is in the USA ($30.25); South Korea ($29.63), and Australia ($24.99). On Android, it is in the USA ($27.88); Canada ($22.01), and the United Kingdom ($20.45).
Famitsu: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door topped the Japanese retail chart in May 2024
Famitsu only considers physical game sales.
Game Sales
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door sold 115.6 thousand copies in 3 days. The game was released on May 23. The re-release nearly matched the record of the original game, which was released in 2004 on the GameCube and sold 138 thousand copies in retail during the same period.
❗️Digital sales are not included here, so, in reality, the remaster might have higher launch sales with Nintendo eShop numbers.
- Stellar Blade (46.4 thousand copies) holds the second place; Endless Ocean Luminous (42.8 thousand) is in third place.
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Stellar Blade is the only game in the chart not released by Nintendo. Nintendo holds 48.5% of the total retail sales volume.
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79.9% of all games sold were for the Nintendo Switch (769.9 thousand copies). Games for the PS5 account for 15% of the market (144 thousand copies).
Hardware Sales
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The Nintendo Switch is the sales leader, with the console being purchased 193 thousand times in May.
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The PlayStation 5 sold 89.2 thousand units.
Video Game Insights: How much money has PlayStation made by releasing games on Steam?
Until 2020, Sony had released only 3 games on Steam. The first of them was the original Helldivers. The strategy shift began with the release of Horizon: Zero Dawn in August 2020, after which Sony released 14 projects on PC. And it doesn’t plan to stop.
PlayStation performance on Steam
- Including Helldivers II, Sony has sold 28 million copies of its games on Steam. Without counting the latest hit, it's 17 million copies.
- Over the past 4 years, PlayStation games on Steam have earned $830 million. Helldivers II accounts for 34% of this amount.
- Using Horizon Zero Dawn as an example: out of 24 million copies sold, 3.7 million were on PC (15%). According to VGI estimates, the game earned $120 million on PC and around $500 million on PlayStation. Thus, releasing on Steam increased sales by about a quarter. Considering that the entire game cost about $47 million to develop, the PC port alone has recouped the development cost several times over.
- However, revenue from PC ports is a small part of Sony's overall gaming revenue. In the 2023 fiscal year, the PlayStation business earned $29.4 billion.
Ghost of Tsushima Case Study
- Ghost of Tsushima, released in May 2024, sold 800 thousand copies on Steam in the first 20 days. The launch is comparable to the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man and Horizon: Zero Dawn.
- Moreover, Ghost of Tsushima retains users better. On the 20th day, the project had twice the CCU (concurrent users) compared to the two aforementioned projects.
- VGI, analyzing the success of Ghost of Tsushima, notes that the project approached its launch with 1.428 million wishlists.
- The audience of Ghost of Tsushima overlaps significantly with the audience of other PlayStation games on Steam. In the top 10 for overlaps, 5 are from PlayStation.
Sensor Tower: AAA Marketing in 2023
- 50% of the advertising budgets in 2023 were spent on supporting new launches. In 2022, only 20% of the budget was used for this purpose.
- The largest launches of 2023 include Hogwarts Legacy ($33 million); Diablo IV ($26 million); Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III ($19 million); Star Wars Jedi: Survivor ($16 million); and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora ($15 million).
- The leader in advertising budgets was Fortnite - developers spent $57 million on advertising in 2023, according to Pathmatics, a service owned by Sensor Tower.
❗️I believe the actual marketing budgets for these projects are higher. Based on the budgets of projects I’ve seen, it's hard to imagine that Diablo IV's campaign, for instance, which included videos featuring Megan Fox and soundtracks by Billie Eilish, was all done for just $26 million.
- YouTube is the main channel for promoting PC/console games in the USA, accounting for 35% of all advertising budgets. Following it are Facebook (23%); TikTok (12%); and Instagram (11%). Sensor Tower estimates total advertising spending for PC/console games in the USA to be $600 million.
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Activision Blizzard ($79 million); Epic Games ($65 million); and Electronic Arts ($63 million) spent the most on marketing in the USA in 2023.
❗️Considering that EA spent $978 million on marketing and sales in the 2023 fiscal year, I’m very skeptical that only 6.4% of the budget was allocated to promoting its PC/console games in the USA, one of the company's key markets.
Advertising for Live-Service, Cross-Platform, Transmedia, and Sports IP
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Fortnite set a record for spending in Q4'23, with campaigns for Fortnite OG and LEGO Fortnite.
- miHoYo ranked third in spending in May 2023 with their game Honkai: Star Rail, surpassed only by P&G and Amazon. Most of the advertising budget for Honkai: Star Rail in 2023, 95%, was allocated to mobile devices.
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Madden NFL 24 on PC and consoles became the second-largest advertiser in the USA in the NFL segment, only behind the CBS Sports channel.
Case Study: Hogwarts Legacy - Q1'23
- 4% of the advertising budget went to promoting pre-orders; 45% on advertising before launch; 38% on post-launch advertising; and 13% on launching on new platforms (PS4, Switch).
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Hogwarts Legacy's marketing was adapted to different channels. For example, on TikTok, the focus was on short 15-second videos. On YouTube, most of the budget went to 30-second videos. And on Instagram - to Stories.
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The marketing for the project on YouTube was relatively stable, while on Facebook and TikTok, peaks were associated with pre-launch campaigns.
- Hogwarts Legacy marketers carefully tailored the creative content for each channel. It varied between Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. The partnership with PlayStation was also heavily highlighted.
- OTT became the most popular advertising channel outside the major social networks ($1.8 million). Interestingly, only $314,000 was spent on Twitch.
Case Study: Diablo IV - Q2'23
- In the advertising creatives, the company positioned Diablo IV as a “return to the dark atmosphere of Diablo II.”
- The marketing budgets were distributed as follows: 4% of the total budget went to pre-orders; 21% to open beta advertising; 18% to pre-launch advertising; 50% to launch advertising; and 7% to post-launch advertising.
- On YouTube, the preference was for 30-second videos; on TikTok, for videos up to 15 seconds.
- A week after the release, Diablo IV marketers launched a campaign highlighting the project's acclaim from the press.
- The game was actively involved in sales promotions after its release.
Case Study: Starfield - Q3'23
- Advertising expenses for promoting the project were spread out over time. 20% of the budget was spent on the announcement in 2021; then in June 2022, 12% was spent highlighting a gameplay trailer. 9% of the budget went to pre-orders; 24% to pre-launch advertising; 32% to launch advertising; and 2% to post-launch advertising.
- In advertising campaigns, Starfield focused on 15-second videos showcasing gameplay footage and live-action creatives. The Xbox brand was prominently featured.
Case Study: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III - Q4'23
- The advertising campaign for the project was very concentrated. 3% of the budget went to the early beta (1%) and pre-orders (2%). 13% was spent on the open beta; 16% on pre-launch advertising; 40% on launch advertising; and 20% on advertising during the holiday season.
- Interestingly, there was no advertising campaign around the announcement of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III.
- While the marketing campaign for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II heavily used celebrities, Modern Warfare III focused on eSports influencers.
- The PlayStation branding was prominently used in the creatives.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III had the most creative collaborations among the cases considered. The project included a song by 21 Savage; collaborations with Dune: Part II; and premium watchmaker MVMT.
Take This & Nielsen: In games with toxic communities, people spend less money
The companies surveyed 2,408 players of different ages.
- Every 4th player believes that the community should not be a place for hate and insults. More women (83%) support this view compared to men (70%). There is also a difference between age groups – the younger the player, the more important a safe environment is to them.
- 21% of players spend less time in games with toxic communities. A similar percentage of players refuse to spend money in games where they experience harassment. Men (22%) are more likely to make this decision than women (13%).
- 3 out of 10 players leave game lobbies when they encounter insults.
GameAnalytics: Key Roblox & Games for Roblox metrics in 2023
The GameAnalytics report analyzed thousands of projects that use the company's analytics tools. Among the selected projects, 60 have more than 10 million MAU, and 300 have more than 1 million MAU. In total, over 4 billion game sessions were analyzed.
❗️It is important to note that the selection does not include projects that do not use their analytics. Therefore, the data likely excludes projects from small or inexperienced developers.
- 47% of Roblox players play on both mobile devices and PC. 37% play only on PC. 12% - only on mobile devices. Consoles accounted for just 1% in 2023.
❗️Official Roblox reports indicate that 78% of users play on mobile devices.
- 50% of players play games in Roblox at least twice a day. A quarter of players play up to 3 times a day. 5% of users engage in 5.7 sessions per day
❗️Roblox previously reported that the average user spends 2.4 hours in the game per day.
- 4.2% of users spend Robux (in-game currency) in games. According to GameAnalytics, more than half of Roblox users spend less than $1 per year on games (this does not include user-generated content or cosmetic items from the marketplace).
Benchmarks in Games
- In half of the games, the average session length does not exceed 6 minutes. For the top 5% of games, it is approximately 30 minutes per session.
- In the top 5% of projects, users return more than 3.5 times a day. In the top 25%, users return at least 2 times a day.
- It is difficult for Roblox games to retain their audience. Only 12-15% of users return after the first day. The situation is not much better even for top games. For all the analyzed projects, even the best ones, Retention D90 (90-day retention) is less than 1%.
- The top 5% of games earn $7 per year per player. But more than half report that a single player brings them $0.50 per year.
Sensor Tower: Hybrid-Casual Market in 2023
- In 2023, there were 136 new hybrid-casual (according to Sensor Tower taxonomy) projects released. This is 40% more than the previous year.
- The segment's revenue reached $1.5 billion, which is approximately 36% more than the previous year.
- Downloads of hybrid-casual games in 2023 did not grow and remained at the level of 5.9 billion.
Top Hits
- Race Master 3D - Car Racing by SayGames became the most downloaded hybrid-casual game of 2023 with 112.3 million downloads.
- In second place by downloads is Stumble Guys (100.4 million downloads); in third place is Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game (94.4 million).
- The leaders in revenue for 2023 are Survivor.io ($182.3 million); Triple Match 3D ($138.8 million) and Rush Royale ($70.8 million).
❗️ I do have questions about the Sensor Tower taxonomy. I wouldn’t say that Rush Royale is a hybrid-casual project. However, the question of genre classification is debatable.
New Games in the Top 10
- There are 5 new entries in the top 10. The most notable are My Perfect Hotel (86.9 million downloads) and Car Race 3D: Car Racing (81.4 million downloads).
❗️ Somehow, "Temple Run 2", which was released in 2013, ended up on the list. In the top revenue, we have Legend of Slime (released in July 2022) and Idle Lumber Empire (released in 2021). Overall, sometimes it requires information to be double-checked to avoid misleading.
Most Successful Events
- Celebrating the Lunar New Year boosted the revenue in "Hunt Royale" by over 1000%, and downloads increased by 60%.
- Celebrating Vietnam's national day allowed 1945 - Airplane Shooting Game to increase revenue by 540%; downloads grew by 40%. Overall, there are three shoot-'em-up projects from 1SOFT, which specializes in this genre, in the ranking.
- Out of 10 events, only one project has an IP collaboration - Stumble Guys. The event with the Smurfs increased revenue by 270%, and downloads by 160%.
Games & Numbers (12.06.24 - 25.06.24)
PC/Console Games
- According to GameDiscoverCo, Black Myth: Wukong has over 4 million wishlists on Steam, with 60-70% of them coming from China. During the 2024 Summer Game Fest, the game has been added to wishlists 854,000 times.
- Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin has sold over 2 million copies in 3 years. The game achieved its first million sales within the first 11 days.
- Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance has sold over 500,000 copies in the first 3 days. Combined with the original game, total sales have reached 1.6 million copies.
- Todd Howard announced that Starfield has an audience exceeding 14 million players, with an average gameplay duration of around 40 hours. The milestone of 13 million players was reported in December 2023.
- Over 15 million users have played Microsoft Flight Simulator, a number that includes Game Pass subscribers.
- From Software announced just days before the release of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC that Elden Ring has surpassed 25 million copies sold. In February of this year, the company reported 23 million sales.
- Activision Blizzard boasted that their Crash N. Sane Trilogy has been purchased over 20 million times.
- Sales of Resident Evil Village have exceeded 10 million copies, taking 3 years to achieve this milestone. Total sales of the series have surpassed 157 million copies, with the best-selling game being the Resident Evil 2 remake, which sold 13.9 million copies.
- The VR game Gorilla Tag has earned over $100 million since 2021. The game has been bought more than 10 million times, with an average session time of 60 minutes.
- The meditative building simulator Tiny Glade has garnered over a million wishlists. The developers shared their joy on social media.
Mobile Games
- Sensor Tower reports that Chinese users spent a staggering $270 million on Dungeon & Fighter Mobile in a month, excluding Android stores. Niko Partners revised their forecast for the project, increasing it from $1 billion to nearly $2.5 billion annually. In its first month in China, the game earned more than it did in over two years in Korea ($180 million). The game’s launch was even better than Monopoly GO!, and it’s only available in two markets.
- Summoners War: Sky Arena has earned over $3 billion in ten years. The game reached its first billion in August 2017, the second in August 2020, and the third in June 2024. Over 90% of its revenue has come from outside South Korea.
- Sensor Tower reports that Squad Busters has surpassed 44.3 million downloads and $28 million in revenue, though actual figures are likely higher.
- Wuthering Waves has been downloaded more than 30 million times, according to its developer, Kuro Games. AppMagic reports a figure three times lower but doesn’t account for alternative platforms. The Chinese portal GameLook estimated that the game earned $137.8 million in its first month.
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Zenless Zone Zero has broken the record for pre-registrations held by Squad Busters. In a month and a half, the project has attracted over 41.5 million users. At launch, Honkai: Star Rail had 31 million users and Genshin Impact had 21 million.
- According to Sensor Tower, Solo Leveling: Arise has earned over $70 million in its first month. Of this revenue, 39.4% came from South Korea, 16.9% from the USA, and 15.6% from Japan.
- Cygames announced that their game Uma Musume: Pretty Derby has been downloaded more than 21 million times in 3 years. In Japan alone, the game has earned over $2 billion.
- Million Lords has been downloaded more than 3 million times, according to the developers.
GSD & GfK: Game sales in Europe in May 2024 fell by 17%
Analytical platforms report only the actual sales figures obtained directly from partners. The mobile segment is not included.
Game Sales
- 11.6 million games for PC and consoles were sold in Europe in May of this year. This is 17% less than the previous year.
❗️ In May 2023, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom alone sold more copies than all the games in the top 10 in May 2024 combined.
- EA Sports FC 24 topped the May chart, followed by GTA V.
- F1 2024 started in the 3rd position, but its initial sales were 35% worse than its predecessor. The release of Ghost of Tsushima on PC allowed the game to climb to the 4th position.
- The only new game in the top 100 in May is Homeworld 3 (ranked 76th).
Hardware Sales
Console sales do not include the markets of Germany and the United Kingdom.
- 311,000 consoles were sold in May 2024, which is 40% less than the previous year.
- The biggest sales drop was seen in the Nintendo Switch sales. Last year, the console was actively purchased due to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
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Accessory sales fell by 25%, with DualSense remaining the leader.
StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: The Streaming Market in May 2024
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In May 2024, Twitch accumulated 1.679 billion hours of watch time. Analysts from StreamElements and Rainmaker.gg compare this to May 2019, when Twitch had 940 million hours. A significant increase.
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However, in May 2024, the number of hours watched per day dropped to 54 million. This is 1% less than the previous month, and overall, the trend of decline has been observed since the beginning of the year.
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Streamer Kai Cenat decided to conduct a marathon on Elden Ring, which resulted in the game entering the top 10 in terms of hours watched (27 million). He played the game for 116 hours, with an average of 105,000 viewers watching his progress.
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By the end of the month, KaiCenat became the most-watched gaming streamer, with over 20 million hours of watch time.
Steam in 2024
Cassidy Gerber, a member of Steam's business team, shared the platform updates at Nordic’24.
- Steam is growing in revenue. Over the past 5 years, the platform's revenue has more than doubled, increasing by over 2.5 times.
❗️Simon Carless in his newsletter GameDiscoverCo estimated that Steam earned $1.075 billion in May 2024, which is 14% more than in May 2023.
- Daily revenue from seasonal sales on Steam is growing. The Spring Sale in 2023 increased by 22% year-over-year (YoY); the Summer Sale by 23%; the Autumn Sale by 17%; and the Winter Sale by 13%. All sales, except for the Spring Sale, set absolute revenue records in 2023.
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The peak number of concurrent users on Steam reached 36.3 million.
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The peak number of concurrent players exceeded 10 million.
- The user base of Steam has grown the most (by more than 150%) in the last 5 years in Japan, India, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, Israel, and Pakistan.
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Significant growth (over 100%) in the last 5 years was seen in China, Serbia, Spain, the Philippines, Vietnam, Peru, and the USA.
❗️ The USA is marked with an asterisk, and Cassidy did not explain why during the lecture.
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Key growing regions are Asia (including Southeast Asia), Central, and South America.
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Steam shared the distribution of languages on the platform. The most popular language is English (35.08%); the second is Chinese (28.08%); and the third is Russian (7.91%). The platform currently supports 29 languages.
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65% of Steam's audience indicated a primary language other than English. This underscores the importance of localization.
Appfigures & AppMagic: iOS Ports of Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil, and Death Stranding are far from success
Premium games on iOS are available for free for a limited time, and they need to be purchased to continue.
Resident Evil
- AppMagic's estimates are higher - the service's analysts suggest that Resident Evil 4 was purchased 15 thousand times, and Resident Evil Village was purchased 34 thousand times.
- Resident Evil 4, according to Appfigures, has been downloaded 357 thousand times, with the project's revenue amounting to $208 thousand. This means that at $29.99, the game was purchased 7 thousand times.
- Resident Evil Village has 370 thousand downloads and $92 thousand in revenue. For $15.99, the game was purchased by 5750 people.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
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Since its release on June 6, the game has been purchased 3 thousand times at $49.99. The project was downloaded 123 thousand times and earned $138 thousand. The game is only available on iPhone 15 Pro and the latest iPads.
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AppMagic's estimate is higher - almost 6 thousand buyers and 279 thousand downloads.
Death Stranding
- Since January 2024, the game has been purchased 10.6 thousand times at $19.99, according to AppFigures. This is about $212 thousand in gross revenue.
- AppMagic gives an estimate of 23 thousand buyers.
General Conclusions
- So far, AAA games on iOS are performing poorly. Considering the need for porting and optimization, the economic benefits of such an enterprise appear dubious.
- AppMagic analyst Andrey Zubov reasonably notes that people who have bought an iPhone 15 Pro and are ready to pay $50 for a AAA game likely also have the means to purchase a console.
Steam users spent $19B on games they never launched
The study was conducted by the PCGamesN portal using the Steamidfinder service.
- Only 10% of Steam accounts are accessible for analysis. The study was based on these accounts. The owners of these accounts spent $1.9 billion on games they never launched. The journalists from the portal simply multiplied this figure by 10.
❗️The service does not consider whether a game was purchased on sale. Therefore, the actual figure could be half as much.
StreamHatchet: The Release of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree significantly increased Elden Ring’s popularity on Streaming Platforms
- The number of views started to increase on May 25, a month before the DLC release. The number of daily viewing hours grew from 736,000 on May 25 to 5.8 million hours the day before the DLC release.
- On release day, the game received 15.2 million viewed hours.
- Over the three days from June 21 to June 24, the game accumulated 46.2 million viewing hours. The peak number of viewers was 835,000; the average number of viewers was 494,000.
- This is an impressive metric for any game, but considering it's for a DLC, it’s a crazy success.
- KaiCenat’s streams of the Elden Ring DLC garnered 5.1 million viewer hours. This is 11% of the total viewing volume for the game after the DLC release.
What's the gamepads usage in Steam
Yeah, there was such a thing.
The data was shared by the platform itself
- Since 2018, the number of sessions with gamepads has tripled – from 5% to 15%.
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42% of all gamepad sessions use Steam Input (which includes support for more than 300 controllers).
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59% of all gaming sessions use an Xbox gamepad; 26% use PlayStation gamepads; 10% use Steam Deck.
Tune in next month for more updates!
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