The US market experienced a decline in 2022. Newzoo highlighted 10 trends of 2023. AppsFlyer shared the benchmark of app uninstalls in Google Play.
This week:
- NPD: The US gaming market dropped by 5% in 2022
- GSD: European gaming market of PC & Consoles kept falling in December 2022
- AppsFlyer: Uninstall benchmarks on Android
- StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: State of the streaming gaming market in December 2022
- Newzoo: 10 trends in Gaming of 2023
- GDC: Game Industry Report 2023
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NPD: The US gaming market dropped by 5% in 2022
- The US gaming market earned $57B in 2022. It’s 5% lower than in 2021 ($60B).
- American spending on the content was $47.5B (84% of the overall amount). The loss to 2021 was 7%.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the best-selling game in the US. Elden Ring is second, and Madden NFL 23 is third.
- Regarding exclusive titles, God of War: Ragnarok is the best-selling game on PlayStation; Pokemon: Scarlet and Violet is leading on Nintendo Switch, and Forza Horizon 5 is the best-seller on Microsoft platforms.
- Gaming hardware sales increased in 2022 by 8% to $6.57B.
- Nintendo Switch is first by units sold. PlayStation 5 became the most successful console from a revenue perspective.
- Users spending on accessories increased by 8% to $2.5B. The leader by sales was Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller.
December numbers
- Overall sales increased by 2% YoY to $7.6B.
- Sales of gaming hardware increased by 16% to $1.53B. PlayStation 5 was the leader in December by both units and revenue.
GSD: European gaming market of PC & Consoles kept falling in December 2022
Games
- 27.4M games have been sold in Europe in December 2022. It’s a 13% decline from the year before.
- 11.4M copies have been sold in digital format (-17% YoY); 16M copies – in physical (-10% YoY).
- FIFA 23 became the best-selling game of the month. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was second.
- New December releases didn’t show great results. Need for Speed: Unbound started at #12 in charts, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion was #21, and The Callisto Protocol was #22 (but without digital sales).
Consoles and accessories
- 1.33M consoles have been sold in Europe (not counting Germany and the UK) in December 2022. The drop to the previous year is about 19%.
- PlayStation 5 sales didn’t go down massively (drop was about 3.4%) while Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series S|X experienced a significant decline in sales.
- Despite this, Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console in Europe in December 2022.
- Users bought 3.66M accessories in Europe in December 2022. It’s 9% lower than a year before. DualSense remains the best seller with sales up by 5% compared to the previous year.
AppsFlyer: Uninstall benchmarks on Android
AppsFlyer published a report regarding uninstalling numbers. Only Android is counting because it’s rather hard to collect this data on iOS 15 and further. Dates are from July to October (inclusive).
- 49% of apps are deleted from the users’ phones after 30 days. There is an 8% improvement compared to the previous year (53%).
- Games are the most uninstalled apps with a 66% uninstall rate in the first 30 days.
- 71.65% of paid users deleted games in the first month. In the organic case, this number drops to 63.19%.
- On average, users in developing countries delete apps more often than in developed countries.
- Almost 50% of game uninstalls are happening on the second day.
StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: State of the streaming gaming market in December 2022
- 1.6B hours watched users on Twitch in December 2022. It’s the worst result in 2022, but the worth result of 2022 is still better than the best in pre-pandemic 2019.
- Facebook Gaming managed to achieve 405M watched hours in December 2022. It’s the second platform by popularity.
- YouTube Gaming in December received 305M watched hours.
- Escape from Tarkov grew by 455% in hours watched because of the pre-wipe giveaways.
- Users also had an interest in WoW: Dragonflight (+76% watched hours) and Fortnite (+75% watched hours).
Newzoo: 10 trends in Gaming of 2023
- More AA/AAA developers will turn to the GAAS model.
- Microsoft & Activision Blizzard deal will happen, but regulators’ supervision of gaming companies will increase.
- Hybrid monetization options will come to the PC & Console market (including ads).
- The number & size of M&A deals in 2023 will decline.
- The semiconductor shortage will go off and consoles will be more available.
- UA for Mobile will be more complex. Hypercasual games will experience the most challenging times.
- Cloud Gaming companies will invest in PaaS (Platforms as a Service) – in this format, every device (TV or TV Box) may become a gaming console.
- The gaming industry will start to apply AI instruments. However, full AI automatization is far away.
- VR gaming will continue to grow but will remain niche.
- Gaming in cars might become a new segment. BMW announced a partnership with an AirConsole; Tesla integrated Steam; GeForce Now announced an agreement with Hyundai, BYD, and Polestar.
GDC: Game Industry Report 2023
GDC is releasing the annual report to figure out the latest trends in the game industry. This year 2,300 people from the sector answered questions. 85% of respondents are from the US & Europe.
- PC is a pure leader across platforms. 65% of developers are making the game on PC now, and 57% are planning to release the next project on PC. PlayStation 5 is second with 33% on both statuses.
- Three platforms of developers’ interest are PC, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.
- Half of the developers are working on Premium titles. 36% are creating F2P Games. Only 4% of companies are working on games with blockchain monetization.
- Developers believe more in the metaverse in Fortnite (14%), than in Horizon Worlds from Meta (7%). They also believe in Minecraft (7%) and Roblox (5%).
- Interest in blockchain development didn’t grow since 2022. 75% are not interested at all, 16% are ready to review blockchain game opportunities, 7% are interested, and only 2% are working on the Web3 titles.
- 44% of respondents are sure that the game market consolidation is a bad thing. 17% are sure that it will bring only positive changes.
