Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: December 9 - December 13 (2024)
There are almost 30 million hardcore gamers in the US; a number of layoffs in 2024 is larger than in 2022 & 2023 combined, and other news.
Reports of the week:
Consumer Technology Association: Almost 29 million people in the US are hardcore gamers
Famitsu: PlayStation 5 Pro sales in Japan in November are twice as high as regular PS5 versions
Games & Numbers (November 27 - December 10; 2024)
ChainPlay & Storible: 93% of GameFi Projects are Dead
Raj Patel: There've been more layoffs in 2024 than in 2022 and 2023 combined
Consumer Technology Association: Almost 29 million people in the US are hardcore gamers
CTA surveyed 2,703 adults and teenagers in the US.
Games and Other Types of Entertainment
65% of people in the US over 13 years old play games. This is 182.7 million people. The study authors note that the popularity of games in the country is growing.
Games are the second most popular entertainment in the US. It is second only to watching television, movies, and series. However, for younger generations (millennials and Generation Z), games are in first place.
40% of gamers indicated that they would prefer games over watching movies and series.
60% of players also interact with gaming content - streams, videos about games.
81% of Generation Z representatives can call themselves gamers; 67% of millennials; 50% of Generation X representatives; 29% of baby boomers and 19% of those over 78 years old. Males are more likely to call themselves gamers (62%) than females (49%).
Platforms
49% of the US gaming population named mobile devices as their main gaming platform. Most of this audience are casual older players and women. 23% play mainly on consoles, and 22% on PC. There has emerged a noticeable layer of those who mainly play on portable systems - 3% of such players.
However, only 26% of respondents play exclusively on mobile devices. 61% (95.5 million people) sometimes play on multiple platforms. And 38% have done so in the last 3 months.
US Gaming Audience
Generation Z is currently the largest category of players in the US.
18% of gamers (28.6 million) are hardcore gamers, the most economically active. These are mostly men (73%), with an average age of 29 years. They play 42 hours a week, spend most of their time on paid games, and actively buy new games. 91% of hardcore gamers play on PC and consoles. They also use new gaming technologies (cloud gaming, VR, and others) more often than other groups. 71% are subscribed to gaming services; 51% are engaged in creating content related to games. Among the preferences of such users are multiplayer games, shooters, open-world games.
46% of gamers (72.1 million people) are "core" gamers. They are not as active as hardcore gamers, but they play games quite often. 36% (55 million people) are casual gamers.
Interestingly, 69% of "core" gamers and 81% of casual gamers prefer "old" games - those that have been on the market for more than 5 years. People get used to their favorite games and rarely leave them.
Most players start their gaming journey between the ages of 5 and 12. The peak of activity occurs during school years and university, and then people start to churn.
68% of players play games with other people. The older the gamers, the more often they prefer to play single-player projects (81% of people over 60 prefer such games).
Most American players (75%) expect games to become even more social. And 77% are confident that even more live-service games will appear in the next 5 years.
2/3 of respondents believe that games help them meet new friends.
Purchases
64% of gamers in the US plan to buy new gaming devices for themselves next year.
62% of gamers in the US want to buy new peripherals in the coming year. The most popular choices are headphones and microphones.
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23% of respondents noted that they would like to upgrade their gaming device (the difference from the point above is that it was about buying a new device). In the next 12 months, 26% of respondents would like to buy themselves a gaming console.
20% of surveyed gamers in the US already have a portable console.
Digital Goods, Subscriptions, and IP sentiments
69% of gamers prefer to buy digital goods.
40% of players have an active subscription to games or services. 49% have purchased such a subscription in the last 6 months.
29% of respondents plan to buy a subscription next year. Mainly, millennials and Generation Z plan to do this.
68% of users (especially older ones) prefer free games.
44% of the American gaming audience would very much like to see games based on their favorite movies or series.
Regulations and Laws
If the Trump government introduces new tariffs and duties on imports from China and other countries, console prices in the US could rise by 40%.
41% of users who don't play on consoles noted the high cost of console gaming. So this plays a big role.
Famitsu: PlayStation 5 Pro sales in Japan in November are twice as high as regular PS5 versions
Famitsu only accounts for physical copy sales.
Game sales
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake - November’s hit in Japan. The game was released on November 14, and in less than a month, it was purchased 913k times - this is without digital versions. Just over 712k copies were bought by Nintendo Switch owners. The previous record among remakes in the series belonged to Dragon Quest 7: Journey of the Cursed King on Nintendo 3DS (it was purchased 733k times in a month).
In third nominal and second actual place - Super Mario Party Jamboree. 168k physical copies of the project were purchased.
In fourth (third) place - Mario and Luigi: Brothership with 88k copies.
Square Enix - November’s leader in market share of physical game copies (54.1% - $43.2 million); Nintendo is in second place with 30.9% of the market.
In November, more than 1.5 million physical copies of games for Nintendo Switch were sold in Japan alone.
Hardware sales
Total PlayStation 5 sales in November amounted to 151k consoles. Of these, PS5 Pro accounted for just over 102k sales - a good start.
However, Nintendo Switch is still the market leader. The console was purchased just over 255k times in a month.
Games & Numbers (November 27 - December 10; 2024)
PC/Console Games
Users have donated over $750 million for the development of Star Citizen.
Dave the Diver has been purchased more than 5 million times.
Over 5 million people have played Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II. Considering the game hasn't appeared in subscriptions, this number equals sales.
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake has sold over 2 million copies since its release on November 14. More than half of the sales were in Japan.
Phasmophobia sold 1 million copies on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X a month after release. Total sales of the project have exceeded 22 million.
Path of Exile 2 has been purchased more than 1 million times in Early Access.
Crime Scene Cleaner sold 500,000 copies in less than four months. The first 200,000 copies were sold in less than two weeks.
Drug Dealer Simulator 2 has been purchased more than 200,000 times. The game was released just over 5 months ago.
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Mobile Games
Dungeon & Fighter: Mobile earned over $1 billion in 6 months of operation in China on iOS.
Monster Hunter Now's revenue exceeded $250 million according to AppMagic estimates.
Pokemon TCG Pocket's revenue in the first month was $208 million according to AppMagic.
Balatro's revenue on mobile devices reached $4.4 million in two months. The game is sold for $9.99 in the App Store and Google Play, and is also available on Apple Arcade.
Infinity Nikki earned $4 million on mobile platforms alone in 4 days. 77% of the project's revenue came from China. The game was downloaded more than 10 million times across all platforms.
Royal Kingdom earned $2.4 million in 14 days after release. During the soft launch, the project earned $21.2 million. All this is Net Revenue according to AppMagic.
CrazyLabs games have been downloaded more than 7 billion times.
Matchingham Games Group also reported download figures for the group. The company's games have been downloaded more than 750 million times.
Hardware
Global sales of PlayStation 2 have surpassed 160 million units. Sony announced this on its website dedicated to PlayStation's 30th anniversary.
ChainPlay & Storible: 93% of GameFi Projects are Dead
The companies analyzed 3,279 GameFi gaming projects. A project was considered “dead” if it had fewer than 100 DAU (data from DappRadar) or if the token value dropped by more than 90% from peak indicators (data from Dune Analytics). The review was conducted in November 2024.
Market State in 2024
316 new GameFi projects are launched each year. 262 die.
Currently, 93% of all GameFi projects are dead.
88% of all projects have seen their token value drop by more than 90% from their peak value.
On average, the value of GameFi project tokens has fallen by 95% from their peak value.
The average lifespan of a GameFi project is four months. For comparison, meme coins usually live for a year. And typical crypto projects - 3 years.
Future of GameFi
In 2024, $859 million was invested in GameFi projects. This is 13% less than in 2023. And 84.6% less than the peak values of 2022 ($5.56 billion).
In 2024, there were 221 public deals. This is 44% more than last year. But less than the 358 rounds in 2022.
The report’s authors believe that, despite the 2022 bubble bursting, strategic investors are still interested in various GameFi projects. However, a lot of changes are needed for significant and sustainable growth.
❗️I didn’t describe the part about investments because I don’t understand how “average profit” and ROI are calculated here. But I’ve attached the infographic.
Raj Patel: There've been more layoffs in 2024 than in 2022 and 2023 combined
The study only takes into account publicly announced layoffs. In 33% of all announcements, the number of people laid off was not specified.
The data is current as of December 4, 2024.
16,766 layoffs occurred in 2024. In 2023, 8,706 layoffs were announced; in 2022 - 7,949. This means that by the end of this year, more people have already been laid off than in the two previous years combined.
The most cuts occurred in January 2024 (6,345 people lost their jobs), February 2024 (3,269 people were laid off), and June 2022 (2,692 layoffs).
In total, 33,988 layoffs have been reported since the beginning of 2021.
The companies that laid off the most people were Microsoft (4,758 people), Unity (3,115 people), Electronic Arts (2,043 people), Perfect World (2,000 people), and Sony (1,767 people).
❗️The data differs from that collected by the Game Industry Layoffs portal.