Serbian gaming industry grew in 2022; Sony set a new historical record with PlayStation 5; Pokemon GO revenue in April 2023 was the lowest in 5 years, but Niantic said it’s not true.
This week:
- SGA: Serbian game industry in 2023
- Stream Hatchet: Video Games Streaming in Q1 2023
- Star Wars is the most popular IP in the UK gaming retail since 1993
- Sony is breaking records with PlayStation 5
- Newzoo: Hogwarts Legacy is the top-grossing title on PC & Consoles in Q1 2023 in the US & UK
- AppMagic: Pokemon GO in April 2023 reached the minimum revenue in 5 years
SGA: Serbian game industry in 2023
- 15 largest companies earned €150M in revenue in 2022. The major chunk of this amount is generated by mobile titles.
- There are more than 140 companies in Serbia, in which 1,700+ people are employed. 1/3 of them are female. Among leading positions, females are having half.
- 52% of those companies are developers, which are working on original IPs.
- 51 games have been published in 2022 by Serbian companies. 94 projects are in development.
- 42% of games have a budget from €100k to €500k. Only 8% of games are having budget higher than €1M.
Stream Hatchet: Video Games Streaming in Q1 2023
- The number of watched hours is declining for the second year straight. In Q1 2022 was a decline of 6%. Now – by 16% to Q1 2022.
- However, if we compare the number of watched hours with Q1 2019, we’ll see an increase of 46%.
- In Q1 2023 Twitch expanded its market share from 70% in Q1 2022 to 74%. YouTube Live Gaming is growing too – from 13% in Q1 2022 to 15% in Q1 2023. Facebook Live is not feeling so strong, it lost market share from 9% in Q1 2022 to 3% this year’s first quarter. This allowed AfreecaTV to become the third streaming platform in the world with 4% of the audience.
- League of Legends (422M watched hours), Grand Theft Auto V (397M watched hours), and Valorant (310M watched hours) are leaders in Q1 2023.
- Hogwarts Legacy in the first week (and 3 days of early access) got 69.3M hours watched. The game set a record for the number of simultaneous users for a single-player game – 1.28M people have been watching it.
- Resident Evil 4 received 27.3M hours watched in the first week; Sons of the Forest – 27.2M. Dead Space is #4 with 10.4M hours watched. Atomic Heart got 9.5M hours.
- The Last of Us series release positively affected the franchise gaming streams. The number of viewers increased by 106%, and the hours watched – by 107%.
Star Wars is the most popular IP in the UK gaming retail since 1993
The research was prepared by Dorian Bloch, one of the leading analysts at GfK.
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor became the 119 game in the Star Wars franchise since 1993 (when LucasArts released X-Wing). On average, 4 games have been released per year since then. The table above is showing 107 releases, but it’s tracking since 1995.
- That’s more than any other franchise. Even The Sims – including all add-ons released in retail – had less – 108 releases. Mario is third with 101 releases.
- In the UK games developed by the Star Wars franchise earned £492M (without Star Wars Jedi: Survivor). That’s the 6 place by revenue, LEGO, Grand Theft Auto, Mario, Call of Duty, and FIFA are ahead.
- The largest physical release in the UK is Star Wars Battlefront (2015). The previous record was handled by Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008).
- First Star Wars Jedi: Survivor results show that the game – despite perfect press – is selling 35% worse than the first title. However, it’s important to mention, that we’re speaking about retail only, so digital sales might change the picture completely.
Sony is breaking records with PlayStation 5
- Sony shipped 19.1M PlayStation 5 consoles in the 2022 financial year (March 2022 – March 2023). The initial goal was 18M consoles.
- Console shipping in the 2022 financial year increased by 66%.
- Especially successful was financial Q4 2022 (calendar Q1 2023), in which Sony shipped 6.3M consoles. It’s 215% more than a year before.
- Ampere Analysis is highlighting that PlayStation 5 sales in calendar Q1 2023 (or financial Q4 2022) are the best calendar Q1 in all console’s history. And 2 times better than PlayStation 4 ever achieved in calendar Q1.
- 67% of all PlayStation sales are digital. A year before was 66%.
- MAU on PlayStation consoles reached 108M users.
Newzoo: Hogwarts Legacy is the top-grossing title on PC & Consoles in Q1 2023 in the US & UK
- Hogwarts Legacy reached the #1 place by revenue in all titles and platforms except the UK. Console versions of FIFA 23 outperformed Hogwarts Legacy there.
- Despite stereotypes, FIFA 23 is feeling great in the US market too. The console version of the game reached #5 place by revenue.
- Sons of the Forest performed pretty well on PC. The game reached second place by revenue in Q1 2023 in the US and third in the UK.
- Dead Space Remake is showing good results too, especially in the US – the game reached #4 place by revenue on PC and #10 by revenue on consoles.
- God of War: Ragnarok is the only console exclusive on the charts. It reached #7 in the UK revenue console chart. And this is quite an achievement, considering the release date of the game which happened in late-2022.
- The US users prefer to play exclusives on Nintendo Switch, that’s why Metroid Prime: Remastered and Mario Kart 8 are on top of the revenue chart in Q1 2023. 8 out of 10 games by revenue in the US are Nintendo exclusives.
- In the UK “only” 6 games in the chart are Nintendo exclusives.
AppMagic: Pokemon GO in April 2023 reached the minimum revenue in 5 years
Niantic disagreed with AppMagic data and noted that the title revenue depends heavily on events.
- By AppMagic platform data, the game earned $34.6M in April 2023. Last year it was $43M.
- The last month, when revenue was lower than in April 2023, was in February 2018 – Pokemon GO earned $33.7M then.
- The drop in revenue started in February this year ($58M). In March the game, according to AppMagic, earned $42.8M.
- The possible decline is happening against the background of game changes. Niantic restricted remote raids, which provoked a community backlash. People are offering to boycott the game on Reddit.
