
The UK and Turkish markets declined—one of them almost by two times. Electronic Arts are the largest publisher of PlayStation and Microsoft by MAU. Newzoo shared the data of who is playing the Hogwarts Legacy.
This week:
- 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
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Newzoo: Who is playing Hogwarts Legacy

- The game sold 12M copies in the first two weeks after release.
- 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.
- 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.
- 19% of PlayStation 5 owners played Hogwarts Legacy in February.

- 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.
- 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

- It happened in February this year.
- 366,9 thousand PlayStation 5 were sold in February 2023. It’s 457% higher compared to the previous year.
- 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
- Revenue from software sales increased by 0.44% to £4.57B.
- 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 feeling 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).
- 16% of the UK software market revenue is generated by games created in the UK.
Hardware

- Hardware sales in the UK declined by 19% to £2.16B.
- Consoles (-27% to £832M) and accessories (-15% to £396M) have experienced the largest decline.
- PC hardware sales dipped by 14% to £760M. Best yet negative results showed VR devices (-6.6% to £171M).
Game culture

- Revenue from gaming culture items – films, toys, books – increased by 27% to £316M.
- Toys and merchandise sales increased by 7.7% to £196M. Books and magazines also increased by 17% to £13.9M.
- Films revenue in the UK in 2022 was £54.8M. Different events brought another £4.35M.
- 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.
- 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).
- DIY Paper Doll is the only new game in the chart. It’s a stylist simulator with 11.6M downloads in March.
- 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
- $5.4B is the overall damage from the fraud activity.
- 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.
- Games are the most fraud-protected verticals. Fraud numbers in games are 6x times lower than in non-gaming apps.
Fraud in games

- The fraud damage to the gaming in 2022 is valued at $206M.
- Leaders by fraudulent traffic are Europe, APAC, and North America.
- 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
- Bots are the main fraud activity in games.

- Fake publishers are popular in the hypercasual segment.
- 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

- 16.4% of the overall MAU on consoles of Sony & Microsoft played EA games in February 2023.
- Epic Games is the closest competitor with 11.4% MAU.
- EA leadership is supported by leading positions in sports franchises like FIFA 23 and NHL 23.
- 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.
- If the deal with Activision-Blizzard will happen, 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
- The overall market size is $625M, which is 47.9% lower than the year before. The main reason for it is a lira devaluation.
- The mobile gaming market generated $275M of revenue (-55.64% YoY); PC – $175M (-41.67% YoY); consoles – same $175M (-37.5% YoY).
- 81% of the adult population of Turkey is playing mobile games. The ration 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%).
- 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.