The GDC is over, so we can get back to the boring… okay, exciting numbers. Newzoo shared PC/Console market review in 2023. Sensor Tower shared the status of the mobile market in 2022 and shared trends for 2023. data.ai delivered Q1 2023 faster than any other companies with access to the data. And much more.
This week:
- Newzoo: PC & Console Markets in 2023
- Epic Games Store: 2022 Results
- Sensor Tower: Mobile Gaming Market in 2023
- Newzoo & MPL: The PCG Games market will grow to $16B in 2024
- SELL: The French gaming market dipped to €5.5B in 2022
- data.ai: Mobile Gamers have been spending $1.6B+ weekly in Q1 2023
- Circana: The Gaming market in the US increased by 6% in February 2023
- Adjust: Mobile Gaming Trends 2023
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Newzoo: PC & Console Markets in 2023
Main trends
- PC & Console market is changing, but its results are higher than Newzoo forecasted before.
- More AA and AAA games will transform to live-service experiences. This means there will be fewer new games and their lifecycle will be longer.
- The supply of semiconductors is back, so PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X will actively increase their market share.
- The in-game advertising will come to PC & Consoles. But it will be designed in a less destructive way than on Mobile.
Money
- $92.3B is the overall revenue of the PC & Consoles market in 2022. The decline is 2.2% compared to the previous year.
- $51.8B is the size of the Console market (-4.2% YoY); $38.2B is the size of the PC market (+1.8% YoY); browser games got $2.3B in 2022 (-16.7% YoY).
- The North American market is the main one for PC and Consoles, its size is $31.2B (-4.2% YoY). The leader of the region (and not only) is the US with a $29B market size.
- APAC region PC/Console revenue in 2022 was $30.2B (-0.2% YoY). The region behemoth is China with $15.2B.
- The size of the European PC/Console market is $24.3B (-2.9% YoY); LATAM generated $4.2B (+0.7% YoY); MENA – $2.5B (+2.9% YoY).
- The CAGR of the PC/Console market from 2015 to 2022 was 5.8%. The PC market grew by 3.6% yearly and the console had a growth rate of 7.8% annually.
Consumer habits
- 1.1B users are playing on PC; 611M are playing on consoles.
- Players spent 20% fewer hours on PC & Console gaming in 2022.
- Only 1 game released in 2022 on PC was at the overall top by MAU 2022 – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (Warzone 2.0). There are no releases from 2021 as well.
- Shooters, Adventures, and Battle Royale are the most popular genres on PC & Consoles.
- Console players are more tend to make in-app purchases. They’re buying content, doing micropurchases, and using subscriptions. On Consoles 48% of overall revenue are generated through such kind of payments; PC has 39% of revenue on this.
- 13 out of 20 top games of 2022 on consoles were F2P. On PC there were 12 games out of 20 using the free-to-play model.
- Three large games in 2022 switched the Premium model to the F2P – Overwatch 2, Fall Guys, and The Sims 4.
- Transmedia marketing strategy works. Cyberpunk’s 2077 MAU increased by 249% after Cyberpunk: Edgerunners release.
- There is a direct correlation between games’ popularity on streaming platforms and DAU. But it’s working for the AAA releases only.
- 66% of the audience on PC & Console are spending money on games.
Audience
- 40% of the PC/Console audience are identifying themselves as women.
- 66% of all gamers have been playing on PC or consoles in the last half a year.
- 40% of PC/Console gamers think of themselves as hardcore gamers.
- 75% of PC/Console gamers are not only playing games but watching streams, discussing new releases, etc.
- 7 out of 10 gamers on PC and Consoles have been playing on other devices in the last half a year.
- 66% of gamers are still not very aware of Cloud Gaming.
2023 Forecasts
- The Console market will grow by 9%; the PC – by 1%.
- Postponed releases from 2022 will be launched in 2023, which will stimulate the consumer’s spending.
Epic Games Store: 2022 Results
- The overall number of users reached 230M (there were 194M in 2021).
- 626 new games have been released in 2022 – now 1,548 games are available in Epic Games Store.
- MAU in December 2022 reached 68M users.
- Gamers spent $820M on games in Epic Games Store in 2022. It’s a 2% decline compared to the previous year.
- Third-party games sales on the platform reached $355M. That’s an increase of 18% to 2021.
- 700M free games have been taken in 2022. 99 games with a cumulative price of $2,240 have been given away in 2022. Their average rating was 75 out of 100.
- Genshin Impact, Rocket League, Tiny Tina Wonderlands, GTA V, and Fortnite are the 2022 leaders by revenue and user engagement.
Sensor Tower: Mobile Gaming Market in 2023
Trends
1. The majority of game genres in 2022 fell by downloads. Hypercasual games downloads decreased by 24%. On the contrary, hybrid-casual titles grew by 13% – Sensor Tower forecasts that this genre will replace the traditional hypercasual experience.
2. All genres’ revenue (despite exclusions like tabletop games or action genres) dropped. Shooters experienced a severe fall of 25%, and RPGs are next with a 20% decline. RPG titles are on a downfall trend for 7 consecutive quarters.
3. Asia is the main market for RPG titles. 39% of all revenue is coming from this region.
Hybrid casual market in 2022
- $1.4B is the overall hybrid casual revenue in 2022. The subgenre is growing for the 4th year in a row.
- Downloads in 2022 reached 5.1B which is also a growth from the previous year.
- 99 new hybrid casual games have been released in 2022.
- Hybrid casual games do have longer game sessions (especially on iOS) and average monthly playtime compared to classic hypercasual titles.
- Oceania (+18% YoY), North America (+17% YoY), and Africa (+9% YoY) are leaders in downloads growth for hybrid casual games.
NFT and Web-3 games
- Mobile Web-3 games are declining in downloads from Q3 2022. In H1 2022 downloads of such games reached 46M, in H2 2022 downloads dropped to 29M.
- The situation with MAU is similar, the only difference is that the decline started in Q2 2022.
Meta & monetization trends
- Sensor Tower is positive that we’ve entered the GaaS mobile era.
- Games that are responsible for 97% of mobile games revenue are using different Live Ops approaches.
- 15% of top titles with loot boxes are generating 73% of worldwide mobile revenue.
- Heroes collection is one of the core pillars of monetization. It can be found in 7 out of 10 top titles by revenue.
- Games with a combination of heroes collections and social elements (clans), experience better user engagement compared to games without those features or which have only one of them.
Gaming market numbers in 2022
- Mobile games revenue is declining for 5 consecutive quarters. It started in Q4 2021.
- The US remains the largest mobile gaming market with $5.5B+ revenue in each quarter of 2022. But in Q4 2022 the decline to the previous year was 6%.
- Japanese (-22% YoY), South Korean (-20% YoY), and Taiwanese (-12% YoY) markets experienced the largest declines in 2022.
- India grew by revenue in Q4 2022 by 13% YoY and reached $2.5B annually.
- Since 2019 the US increased its mobile gaming market share from 26% to 29%. Japan is losing it. China too, but Sensor Tower is not tracking 3rd-party Android stores.
- Downloads on the mobile gaming market are stable for the last couple of years. After the peak in Q1-Q2 2020, they declined by 2% in Q3-Q4 2021, and 1% in Q3-Q4 2022.
- India in 2022 generated 17% of worldwide gaming downloads. The US and Brazil generated 8% each. Indonesia – 6%, Russia – 5%.
The US mobile gaming market
- 2022 ended with a decline of 6%.
- Games downloads in the US in 2022 fell lower than pre-pandemic levels. Before COVID-19, in Q4 2019, downloads reached 1,269B. In Q4 2022 they’ve been 1,107B.
The European mobile gaming market
- The European market declined by 11% in revenue in 2022. However, results are still significantly better than pre-pandemic levels.
- Russia’s drop in revenue was 72%, which made it out of the top-5 European markets for the first time in history. The UK also had a steep decline of 13% YoY in Q4 2022.
- Downloads got back to the pre-pandemic levels.
- Despite monetization issues, Russia is still the largest European market by downloads. The country generated 673M downloads in Q4 2022 – 24% of the overall amount.
The Asian gaming market
- Revenue declined by 14% in 2022.
- Downloads in Q4 2022 increased by 6% YoY. It’s the only big region that showed growth – thanks to India.
Newzoo & MPL: The PCG Games market will grow to $16B in 2024
PCG (Paid Competitive Games) is a genre of games in which players can earn real money competing with other gamers. This type of games is also called skill-based games.
Market
- The CAGR of the segment from 2021 to 2024 will reach 31.9%. This is 6 times higher than the CAGR of traditional games (4.9% growth in the same period).
- The main PCG markets are the US, India, Mexico, the UK, and Germany.
- The US is the largest market for PCG games. In 2021 it was valued at $3B and in 2024 it will grow to $6.6B.
- India is second with projected growth to $3.5B in 2024.
Gamers behavior
- PCG players spend more time in games than traditional gamers (4.6 – 6.2 hours per week against 3.5 – 5.3 hours per week). They also do have more games installed (6 – 7.6 games versus 4.4 – 6.1 games installed on traditional gamers’ devices).
- PCG gamers are planning to increase their spending in the upcoming years. In India 58% of players have a such intention; in the US and Brazil, there are 51%.
SELL: The French gaming market dipped to €5.5B in 2022
- The decline to 2021 was 1.6%.
- The console segment revenue reached €2.56B (-6.6% YoY); the PC segment grew by 5.8% YoY to €1.54B. The mobile gaming market remained flat with €1.41B in revenue.
- Retail was responsible for 55% of all sales.
- It’s interesting that physical game copies on consoles grew in 2022 by 4% while digital sales declined by the same percentage. This is different from the world trends.
- FIFA 23 is the best-selling game of the year in France (1.75M copies). Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (791k copies) and Pokemon Legends: Arceus (589k copies) are next.
data.ai: Mobile Gamers have been spending $1.6B+ weekly in Q1 2023
- On average, gamers have been spending $1.63B and have been making 1.2B downloads weekly in Q1 2023.
- It’s 28% higher than in pre-pandemic Q1 2020. But lower than during the pandemic years.
- There were some changes in the Q1 2023 downloads charts. Attack Hole, the new game from Homa, reached #7 place. Football League 2023 was up by 47 positions to take #8 place. Gardenscapes experienced a growth of 40 positions which helped it to seat in #9 place.
- Gardenscapes also grew by revenue and made it to the top-10 chart in #9 place. Uma Musume Pretty Derby had a successful 2 years anniversary which helped it to reach #10 place in the top-grossing chart. Positions from #1 to #6 remain unchanged with an Honor of Kings as the solid leader.
Circana: The Gaming market in the US increased by 6% in February 2023
Market numbers
- The US players spent $4.6B on gaming products in February 2023 (+6% YoY).
- Gaming spending reached $3.9B (+1% YoY). Hardware sales increased by 68% YoY and reached $495M. Accessories sales were also good with $212M (+13% YoY).
Games
- Hogwarts Legacy became the bestseller of the month and the best-selling game of 2023.
- 7 new games appeared in the US PC/Console top-20 chart in February 2023.
- The HBO TV series helped The Last of Us: Part I jump from #11 to #6 place in the top chart by sales in February. The Last of Us: Part II also changed its position from #41 to #18.
- The overall revenue of mobile gaming in the US continues to decline. The mid-core genre is struggling the most.
- Mobile shooters after the severe 2022 are in the stable period, the decline is over.
- Mobile sports games increased by revenue in February 2023.
Consoles
- Console sales showed the best result since February 2009.
- PlayStation 5 is the February’23 leader by both unit sales and revenue.
Adjust: Mobile Gaming Trends 2023
The report is including data collected from January 2021 to January 2023. More than 5 thousand apps were reviewed.
Market numbers
- Mobile gaming revenue in 2022 was $110B. It’s 5% less than a year before.
- The Chinese gaming market is $42.4B and is the largest one. The US ($24.02B), Japan ($13.1B), South Korea ($5.28B), and Germany ($2.47B) are next.
- Mobile games ad spend in 2023 will reach $362B. Growth to 2022 will be 7.5%.
- The number of users allowing the ATT opt-in has been increasing through 2022. In mobile games, it increased from 30% to 36%.
- Downloads and the number of sessions in games dropped in 2022. But in January 2023 the trend reversed and analytics have seen an increase of 10% in downloads and 11% in sessions. IAP revenue also increased by 14% compared to the average monthly result of Q4 2022.
- However, overall IAP Revenue in 2022 declined by 9% compared to the previous year.
Downloads
- Music games (+190%), educational games (+124%), racing (+32%), board games (+20%) grew by downloads in 2022.
- Hypercasual games are responsible for about 25% of overall game mobile downloads.
- Paid to organic users ratio in 2022 decreased from 0.75 to 0.71. In hypercasual games, the decline was from 3.2 to 2.93.
Product metrics
- An average D1 Retention is 29% – this number remained unchanged in 2022. D3 Retention declined from 20% to 19%; D30 also dropped from 7% to 6%.
- The highest average D1 Retention in Q4 2022 was in sports games – 31%.
- The average session length in January 2023 was 30.96 minutes.
- Action games are responsible for 25% of all sessions.
