China will be twice as open to new games this year than the previous one, Niko Partners forecasts. The UK gaming market grew in Q1 2023, but March ran out of steam. Konvoy Venture predicts that the gaming market will grow to $201B by the end of 2023.
This week:
- 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
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.
- 91% of users from the US notice misleading ads. In other countries, this varies from 71% to 77.2%.
- Almost 75% of users in Europe and the US stated that misleading ads look more fun than actual games they advertise.
- 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.
DappRadar & BGA: Activity in blockchain games in Q1 2023 declined
- 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.
- 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 there as a bullish signal, but my humble opinion is that other verticals just declined more.
- The top-5 games by UAW in Q1 2023 – Alien Worlds (223k), Splinterlands (127k), Planet IX (62k), Nine Chronicles (22k), Upland (21k).
- $739M has been invested in blockchain games in Q1 2023.
StreamElements & Rainmaker.gg: The streaming market in February 2023
- 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.
- Hogwarts Legacy debuted as #5 on the Twitch chart. The game is even higher if we’ll 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
- Omdia’s analysts calculated that in 2022 1.62M systems have been sold.
- 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
- Аналитическое агентство оценивает, что до конца года китайское правительство должно будет выдать более 1,100 лицензий.
- В первом квартале уже были выданы 288 лицензий (261 – для домашних игр; 27 – для зарубежных). Это 56% от всего объёма 2022 года.
- Несмотря на то, что объём выдачи лицензий вряд ли когда-либо вернётся к цифрам до 2018 года, аналитики Niko Partners считают текущую активность новой реальностью. И она лучше, чем год или два назад.
Subway Surfers reached 4B downloads
- Subway Surfers became the most downloaded game of 2022 despite its release in 2012.
- The game 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
- Game sales increased by 1% compared to the previous year. Overall sales almost reached 8M copies.
- 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.
- 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.
- Nintendo Switch dropped in sales by 25%, however, ended in second place. Xbox Series S|X sales were down by 18%.
March 2023 results
- 2.7M game copies have been sold in March 2023. It’s 3% lower than a year before.
- Resident Evil 4 became the best-selling game of the month. 65% of sales came from PlayStation versions; 20% – from Xbox; 15% – from PC.
- Hogwarts Legacy ended the month in the second position.
- Console sales dropped by 3% compared to the previous month. Growth to the previous year is 23%. 138k consoles have been sold.
- PlayStation 5 sales decreased by 2% to February numbers. Nintendo Switch showed a slight growth; Xbox Series S|X dropped by 10%.
- 616k accessories have been sold in March 2023. It’s 20% more than in February, but 3.7% less than in March 2022.
- 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
- However, the agency highlights, that only 10% can be named as a core audience.
- This means that 300M people that buy PC 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.
- 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.
- 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%.
- 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
- 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.
- By the end of 2027, the gaming market is prognosed to reach $283B.
- 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
- The VC investment by size and the number of deals returned to pre-2021 levels.
- Big companies have $48B in cash on their balance. Part of this money will be spent on M&A deals.
- 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.
War Robots earned $750M in lifetime
- The game achieved this milestone in 9 years.
- War Robots universe will continue to develop. PC/Console game War Robots: Frontiers has been announced already, but MY.GAMES executives hint on new announces soon.
