Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: April 27 - May 1 (2026)
Circana monthly coverage of the US market; BITKRAFT & Redseer report on the Indian market. Also, great report from Hushcrasher regarding the games budgets dynamics.
Reports of the week:
Circana: The U.S. Gaming Market in March’26
BITKRAFT Ventures & Redseer: India’s Gaming Market in 2025
Hushcrasher: Games budgets & did games become more expensive to make?
Circana: The U.S. Gaming Market in March’26
Market
In March 2026, Americans spent $5.3 billion on games, up 12% year-over-year.
First quarter spending grew 5% YoY to $14.6 billion.
Game content sales grew 8% YoY to $4.6 billion.
Console content revenue grew 22%, with digital B2P sales up 40%.
PC, cloud, and non-console VR revenue grew 28%. Subscriptions grew 20%.
Hardware sales jumped 69% YoY to $500 million, driven by Nintendo Switch 2. PS5 sales also grew, up 3% YoY.
Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling platform in both March and Q1, by both units and revenue. PlayStation 5 ranked second across both measures and time periods.
Through its first 10 months on the market, Nintendo Switch 2 unit sales are running 12% ahead of the original Switch over the same period. It remains the second fastest-selling hardware platform in US tracked history (since 1995).
Accessories spending grew 5% YoY to $252 million. Cases and organizers jumped 180% YoY.
Digital at retail (gift cards and receipt codes) grew 30% YoY to $306 million in March 2026. Roblox was up 65% YoY and led all manufacturers in the segment.
Game Sales
MLB: The Show 26 (excluding digital sales on Xbox and Nintendo) was the best-selling game of March in the US. Other strong new releases: WWE 2K26 (#3), Marathon (#4), Pokemon: Pokopia (#5, physical only), Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection (#7), and Crimson Desert (#15, excluding digital sales).
Through the first three months of 2026, Resident Evil: Requiem leads by revenue, followed by MLB: The Show 26 and WWE 2K26.
MLB The Show 26 posted the second-best launch in franchise history, trailing only 2021.
Resident Evil: Requiem has already entered the top 5 best-selling games in the franchise’s history after just two months on sale, trailing only Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 4 (2023), Resident Evil: Village, and the original Resident Evil 4.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach returned to the top 20 following its PC release. The PC version accounted for 85% of the game’s sales in March.
Top 5 mobile games by revenue: MONOPOLY GO!, Last War: Survival, Royal Match, Candy Crush Saga, Gossip Harbor.
According to Sensor Tower, MONOPOLY GO! revenue has declined more than 10% QoQ for the second consecutive quarter, yet the title remains firmly in first place. Gossip Harbor, by contrast, has delivered three consecutive quarters of revenue growth.
Platform Charts
PlayStation and Xbox revenue charts look very similar, with WWE 2K26 and Resident Evil: Requiem leading both. Marathon ranks higher on Xbox than on PlayStation.
Nintendo charts are dominated by Pokemon: Pokopia. Among other new releases, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is putting up solid numbers.
Marathon leads PC sales in March. The game found a receptive audience on Steam, though a month in, it’s fair to say the title is struggling to keep it in the game.
BITKRAFT Ventures & Redseer: India’s Gaming Market in 2025
It’s the report I’ve missed, and it’s interesting, and it highlights data that is not so easy to find elsewhere.
Exchange rate used: $1 = 85 Indian rupees.
India economy
India’s real GDP growth rate exceeds the average for both emerging and developed economies (2018-2025 data).
Private consumption accounts for 61% of GDP, on par with the UK and above China (40%), Saudi Arabia (45%), and the UAE (46%).
The share of discretionary spending in monthly household budgets has grown by 5 percentage points over the past decade: from 24% to 29% in urban areas, and from 22% to 28% in rural areas.
❗️Discretionary spending refers to non-essential expenditures: travel, gaming, hobbies, restaurants, and so on.
India’s median population age is 29 (compared to 40 in China and the UK, and 38 in the US). 51% of India’s population is under 30.
The internet audience reached 835 million in 2025 and is projected to hit 1.12 billion by 2030. Smartphone ownership stands at around 700 million.
India ranks 3rd globally in average daily mobile usage at 5 hours per day, behind only Indonesia (6.3 hours) and Brazil (5.3 hours).
Mobile internet and smartphone costs in India are among the lowest in the world.
India’s Entertainment Market
India’s digital entertainment market is valued at $9.3 billion in 2025.
Games and interactive entertainment account for a quarter of that total ($2.4 billion), growing 1.5x faster than the broader market.
Gaming revenue in India is projected to reach $7.8 billion by 2030 (26% CAGR).
Gaming Audience
Of approximately 700 million smartphone owners, around 520 million play at least one game.
Paying players number 140 million, roughly 20% of the total gamer population in 2024.
By 2030, the player base is expected to grow to 700 million, with 230 million paying players.
51% of gamers are under 30. The share of women has grown from 23% in 2022 to 26% in 2025.
96% of players game on mobile, 20% on PC, 12% on console.
By downloads, simulators lead (22%), followed by arcade titles (19%) and puzzles (17%).
India’s Gaming Market
India’s gaming market grew from $1.1 billion in 2023 to $1.9 billion in 2025 (31% CAGR).
By 2030, the market is projected to reach $4.4 billion (18% CAGR).
❗️In August 2025, India passed a law fully banning real money gaming online. From 2026 onward, industry revenue will come exclusively from traditional games and esports. Despite this, the report’s authors expect a structural shift rather than a collapse, and remain optimistic about growth rates.
Mobile games account for 78% of the market, PC 15%, and consoles 7%. PC’s share is gradually growing, driven by the availability of gaming laptops and widespread internet access.
Looking at mobile genres, hypercasual, hybrid casual, and casual titles account for 56% of all IAP revenue.
More complex titles account for 44%. By 2030, this is expected to shift: the midcore segment is projected to grow while casual shrinks.
Battle Royale leads by revenue with a dominant 47% share in 2025.
Monetization in the Indian Market
ARPPU grew 5.5x over five years, from $3 in 2020 to $18 in 2025. The figure is projected to grow 9x by 2030. There is an error in the chart below.
The split between advertising and IAP is nearly even. In 2025, advertising accounted for 57% of revenue and IAP for 43%.
By 2030, IAP is projected to grow to 66% of revenue (28% CAGR), while advertising’s share is expected to fall to 33% (9% CAGR).
Among ad formats, native and rewarded ads dominate in midcore and core games. Among IAP types, season passes are the fastest-growing.
Esports Market in India
The esports market reached $38 million in 2025. The numbers are modest, but growth has been significant (a 42% CAGR over the past couple of years).
By 2030, the market is projected to grow to $120 million (26% CAGR).
Hushcrasher: Games budgets & did games become more expensive to make?
According to Hushcrasher estimates, the combined development budget for all Steam games in 2025 was $27 billion. In 2019, the figure was $10 billion, which was 2.7x lower (or 2.2x lower if we don’t account for inflation).
For context, films and TV shows combined spent around $40 billion in 2025. That means PC games alone accounted for 67% of the entire film and TV production budget.
❗️My guess: if we take all platforms (including mobile), the game development budget is on par with film/TV production.
Per Hushcrasher, development costs have genuinely increased in recent years, not only due to inflation.
The larger the project, the steeper the budget growth. AAA game costs have grown 224% since 2015. AA games have grown 250%.
❗️The authors propose classifying games not by budget but by size (in GB) and number of people in the credits. This is from where the Kei (solo developer projects) and Midi projects taxonomy came in. For a better understanding of the taxonomy, the source article is worth reading.
That said, some genres (or specific categories) have seen cost growth well above the market average. VR projects in particular became significantly more expensive (hello, metaverse era). Adventure games, F2P titles, and action games also grew above the average.
There are also genres where development has actually gotten cheaper. Point & click, for example. Though even if it’s a niche genre with small audiences and small teams, it’s worth noting.
Smaller projects released with a publisher consistently cost around twice as much as self-published titles of the same size.
For larger projects, the presence of a publisher has no meaningful impact on development budget. At the AAA level, the developer is usually already a major publisher.