Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: December 29 (2025) - January 2 (2026)
GameDiscoverCo shared the most successful games of 2025; SocialPeta & Reforged Labs covered the mobile marketing creatives market in 2025.
Reports of the week:
GameDiscoverCo: Most successful new releases on PC and Consoles in 2025
Games & Numbers (December 17 - December 30, 2025)
SocialPeta & Reforged Labs: Mobile Game Creative Trends in 2025
GameDiscoverCo: Most successful new releases on PC and Consoles in 2025
Data is collected from January 1, 2025, through mid-December 2025.
Steam: top new paid games by units sold
R.E.P.O., PEAK, and Battlefield 6 are the top three by number of copies sold.
One of the most notable trends of the year is the significant number of friendslop projects. In addition to R.E.P.O. and PEAK, the top 20 also includes Schedule I, RV There Yet?, and Mage Arena.
Large action RPGs are popular on Steam. The top 20 includes Monster Hunter Wilds, Elden Ring Nightreign, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered.
It is encouraging that there is room in Steam’s top 20 for less mainstream genres as well. In particular, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ranks 10th (JRPG? Tactical RPG?), and Dispatch (a visual novel) ranks 18th.
All games in the top 20 sold more than 2 million copies on Steam. The top 7 sold more than 5 million copies. Last year, 14 titles in the top 20 sold over 2 million copies, and 4 sold more than 5 million. However, it is important to note that this year’s top 20 includes a large number of relatively low-priced (by RPP) projects.
Steam: top new paid games of 2025 by revenue
By revenue on Steam, the top three are Battlefield 6, Monster Hunter Wilds, and ARC Raiders. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is close behind.
Notably, none of the new F2P games would have made the top 20 in 2025. The closest are Umamusume: Pretty Derby and Where Winds Meet, but their results are still weaker than inZOI.
According to GameDiscoverCo estimates, all projects in the top 20 by revenue earned more than $50 million in gross revenue on Steam, with 13 games earning over $100 million.
PlayStation: top new paid games of 2025 (excluding PS+) by number of players
Sports games perform much better on PlayStation than on Steam. The top 20 includes 6 sports titles (soccer, basketball, American football twice, baseball, and Formula 1).
Large AAA projects also sell well on PlayStation. Battlefield 6, Monster Hunter Wilds, Elden Ring Nightreign, Split Fiction, and ARC Raiders show significant overlap with Steam’s rankings.
In 2025, both first-party exclusives (Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach) and former competitor exclusives (Forza Horizon 5) sold well on PlayStation.
According to GameDiscoverCo, all games in the top 20 sold more than 1 million copies. 14 sold over 2 million copies, 8 sold over 3 million, and 4 sold over 5 million.
Xbox: top new paid games of 2025 (excluding Game Pass) by number of players
Xbox chart participants largely overlap with the PlayStation rankings. There are even two additional sports games here, with golf (PGA Tour 2K25) and racing (CarX Street) making it into the top 20.
On Xbox, games in the top 10 sold more than 1 million copies, while the top 20 sold more than 300 thousand. However, the gap versus PlayStation is very significant.
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Xbox Game Pass: most popular new releases of 2025
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not just the most downloaded new third-party game of the year. According to GameDiscoverCo, it is the most downloaded game of the year on Xbox Game Pass overall. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is very, very close behind.
The top 20 Game Pass list includes 9 games from Microsoft’s internal studios.
GameDiscoverCo estimates that all games in the top 20 were downloaded more than 1 million times. Some projects came close to 5 million downloads.
Nintendo Switch 1/2: top new paid games of 2025 in the eShop (Western markets only)
The top 20 includes 8 titles published by Nintendo itself.
Among sports titles, only MLB The Show 25 appears in the ranking. The Nintendo platform audience differs significantly from other platforms.
GameDiscoverCo estimates that the top third of the ranking sold close to 1 million copies (excluding physical sales). The bottom third of projects is around 250 thousand copies.
How many PC/console games were released in 2025
Nearly 20 thousand games will be released on Steam by the end of 2025. Almost half of them have fewer than 10 reviews. The number of projects with more than 100 reviews is growing, but slowly.
In total, there are more than 117.5 thousand games on Steam.
More than 3,100 games were released on Nintendo Switch 1/2 this year, an 8% YoY increase. The platform now has more than 17.6 thousand games in total.
More than 1,300 projects were released on PlayStation 4/5 (up 4% YoY). The platform has 9.9 thousand projects in total.
900 games were released on Xbox Series S|X, which is 20% fewer than last year. The platform has 7.8 thousand games available in total.
❗️GameDiscoverCo notes that the total game counts include utilities and applications, so the actual number of games is slightly lower.
Games & Numbers (December 17 - December 30, 2025)
PC/Console games
In an interview with Bloomberg, Swen Vincke said that Baldur’s Gate 3 has been purchased by more than 20 million players.
Games in the Danganronpa series have sold more than 10 million copies, as was announced by the developers.
Buckshot Roulette has been purchased by more than 8 million users. Over the year from December 2024 to December 2025, 4 million copies were sold - the same number as during the first 7 months after release.
Within three months of release, Hollow Knight: Silksong was purchased by 7 million players. The game will receive an expansion in the near future and will also launch on Nintendo Switch 2.
The Octopath Traveler series has reached 6 million copies sold.
No, I’m Not a Human has sold more than 850 thousand copies since September 15, 2025.
Within a week after its announcement, ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs, an electronics repair shop simulator, gathered more than 100 thousand wishlists.
The War of the Worlds: Siberia has been added to wishlists by more than 75 thousand users on Steam.
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Mobile games
Pikmin Bloom has reached $100 million in revenue across the App Store and Google Play. In 2025, the game generated $34.8 million, making it the most successful year for the project since its launch in 2021.
Events
This year’s The Game Awards livestream was launched 171 million times. That is 11% more than last year (154 million). The count does not include Prime Video views, but does include YouTube, Twitch, Steam, TikTok Live, X, Kick, Facebook, Instagram Live, Chinese platforms, and JioHotstar in India.
SocialPeta & Reforged Labs: Mobile Game Creative Trends in 2025
The report is based on SocialPeta Ad Creatives data and Reforged Labs analytics covering the period from January 2024 to October 2025. The dataset includes 6 million advertisers and 1.6 billion ad creatives.
Creative trends in 2025
In 2025, each mobile game advertiser ran an average of 123 active creatives per month (+19.4% YoY).
The share of new creatives averaged 58% across 2025 and reached 60.9% in October 2025.
The highest number of creatives per advertiser is observed in North America, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan - 117.
The highest share of new creatives is in Europe at 46.4%. South America ranks second at 44.4%, followed by North America at 44%. Africa has the lowest share of new creatives at 34.7%.
Creative trends by genre
4X strategy games led by the number of creatives per advertiser, with 325 creatives per month. RPGs rank second with 291 creatives per month, followed by board games with 276 creatives per month.
The highest share of new creatives is seen in casino games (65.6%), RPGs (62.3%), and arcade titles (61.7%).
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Creative trends by platform
77.6% of all ad creatives appear on Android. iOS accounts for only 22.4%.
However, the monthly share of new creatives is similar across platforms - 57.9% on iOS versus 55.8% on Android.
Hardcore and midcore titles on iOS have a significantly higher share of creatives compared to smaller and more casual projects.
Creative formats
Video is the dominant format. On Android, video accounts for 78.1% of all creatives; on iOS, 73.9%.
Puzzle games have the highest share of video ads at 83.5% of all creatives. Casino games have the lowest at 61.3%.
Casino games have the highest share of static creatives (images) at 38.4%.
The most popular video length is 15 to 30 seconds, accounting for 43.1%.
Top 20 mobile games by advertising activity (global)
The ranking is based on the number of unique creatives over the period.
Vita Mahjong, Lands of Jail, and Block Blast lead iOS in creative activity in 2025. On Android, the ranking is similar, with Vita Mahjong, Tile Explorer, and Lands of Jail taking the top three spots.
Case studies: Royal Match, MONOPOLY GO!, Kingshot
The first Royal Match ad recorded by SocialPeta was launched in July 2020. Since then, 99.4 thousand creatives have been released, 85.2% of which are video.
iOS accounts for 24.7% of all creatives, while Android accounts for 75.3%.
On iOS, the main ad sources are AppLovin, Vungle, and IronSource. On Android, the leading sources are Google Ads, Audience Network (Meta), and Facebook.
The most popular Royal Match creative series is the “Save the King” format, where the king is placed in dangerous situations, and the player is supposed to rescue him (and almost always fails in the ad).
The first recorded MONOPOLY GO! ad appeared in July 2022. Since then, the team has produced 178.4 thousand creatives.
79.5% of creatives are video, 17.3% are static images. iOS accounts for 33% of creatives, with the rest on Android.
YouTube and Google Ads are the clear leaders among traffic sources on both iOS and Android.
In its creatives, MONOPOLY GO! often distances itself from the classic board game by showcasing unusual mini-games instead of the traditional board gameplay.
The first Kingshot ad was recorded in August 2024. Since then, the team has released 45.3 thousand creatives.
Video accounts for 79.4% of all creatives, while 18.8% are static. iOS represents 36.8% of creatives, Android 63.2%.
On iOS, the four main traffic sources are almost evenly distributed, with Facebook (Meta), Messenger (Meta), Instagram (Meta), and Audience Network (Meta) leading. On Google, Google Ads dominates by a wide margin.
Reforged Labs notes that Kingshot almost never uses fail mechanics in its creatives. Instead, the ads are calm and often demonstrate early-game gameplay.
AI creatives and mini-games
More than 90% of advertisers used AI to create creatives in 2025.
Mini-games remain the most clickable creative format.
