Newzoo has released its second annual report on the video game industry, which includes a wealth of data and information about what people played and spent in 2023. According to Newzoo data, the PC gaming market reached $93, 5 billion in revenue. in 2023 (2.6% growth), but overall play time has declined as players spent more and more time with older gamesas Fortnite It is League of Legends.
Newzoo data shows that the top 10 games on each platform (ranked by average number of monthly active users) are full of older, more established titles. Fortnite took the crown across all platforms.
The rest of the ranking includes games that everyone can guess, namely Grand Theft Auto V, Counter-Strike 2, Roblox, Minecraft, Rocket League, Apex Legends, Fall Guys, Valorant and Call of Duty.
Speaking of Xbox and PlayStation, just a single-player game was in the top ten: Starfield.
The Nintendo Switch, on the other hand, features many single player games and several recent names, but unfortunately its data is extremely limited as it can only take into account the US and the UK, while the remaining platforms calculate 37 markets.
To further demonstrate that gamers are primarily focused on older games, Newzoo data shows that just 66 titles accounted for 80% of all gaming time in 2023. And 60% of that gaming time was spent on games that are six years old or more . In 2023, in fact, five older games – Fortnite, Roblox, League of Legends, Minecraft and GTA V – will represent 27% of all gaming time for the year.
Of the 23% of gaming time spent in 2023 on new games, defined as games 2 years old or less, more than half was spent on major annual sequels like the latest version of Madden or NBA. Only 8% of gaming time was spent on new non-annual titles like Diablo IV or Baldur’s Gate III.
“It will be increasingly difficult to grow a game’s player base,” says Newzoo in the report, “particularly in the current climate where evergreen titles and robust content channels reign supreme.” Newzoo emphasizes, however, that it is always possible to be successful and find your audience.
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