Newzoo: Transmedia in games: trends, success factors, market insights
Spider-Man is the most popular external IP used in games.
General trends
About 10% of all console releases since 2016 were based on IPs. Since the pandemic, the share of IP-based games increased due to the smaller amount of non-IP releases. IP-based titles tend to have better retention than non-IP games.
Most IP-based games are made in 4 genres: adventures, fighting, RPG, and shooters.
History
The first attempt to make an IP-based game happened in 1982. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial release on Atari 2600 was such a big disaster that the next try was only in 1988 with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
IP-based games market status
Despite the view that the number of IP-based games is increasing, its amount has been consistent since 2016 - from 180 to 228 releases per year. In 2022 there was even a decline with 150 IP-based games being released.
On a console market, there are 30-40 IP-based releases per year.
The share of IP-based games from the overall amount of titles in Steam, App Store, and Google Play is below 2%.
IP games retention
On April 2023, the average IP-based title has 2.5M gamers’ lifetime, while non-IP based only 1.4M players.
IP-based titles are better working with the retention of Premium titles since 2020.
IP-based F2P games are not only better in terms of retention compared to non-IP titles, they even managed to increase the MAU from 2 to 4 million in 2022. Games without transmedia IPs were declining by MAU the whole year.
Most popular IP
Games based on comics or books IPs are considered the most popular. But even in this case out of 88 analyzed games, only 9 had more than 10M users. 51 titles haven’t surpassed the million thresholds.
Top-10 most successful IPs based on the number of users are Spider-Man, DC Comics, The Witcher, Batman, Dragon Ball, LEGO Marvel, Jurassic Park, Naruto, Alien, and Monopoly.