Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: January 8 - January 12 (2024)
New records for Steam; Crunchbase noted that the venture investments in the gaming industry were the lowest in 2023 since 2018; Sensor Tower highlighted top mobile games and publishers in the US.
Reports of this week:
Steam has set a new record for peak concurrent users (CCU)
Sensor Tower: Top mobile games and publishers in the US by Revenue in 2023
GSD & GfK: The UK gaming market grew by 2% in December
Hogwarts Legacy sold 22 million copies in 2023
Crunchbase: Investments in gaming startups at venture stages in 2023 reached a minimum since 2018
TheGameDiscoverCo: Game Catalogs on PC and Gaming Consoles in 2023
Steam has set a new record for peak concurrent users (CCU)
On January 7th, 33.68 million people were on the platform simultaneously. Of them, only 10.6 million were playing games; the rest were engaged in something else.
The previous record was recorded at 33.6 million, which happened in March 2023.
Sensor Tower: Top mobile games and publishers in the US by Revenue in 2023
Mobile Games in the US - Revenue
MONOPOLY GO! - a breakthrough hit in the US market in 2023. According to Sensor Tower, the game was downloaded 33 million times and earned $632 million.
Traditionally strong results are shown by Candy Crush Saga ($472 million in revenue), Roblox ($408 million), and Royal Match ($389 million).
In the revenue charts, it's worth noting Gardenscapes, which rose 16 positions in 2023. The game earned $202 million in the USA.
Mobile Games in the US - Downloads
In the download charts, there are 4 newcomers. In addition to MONOPOLY GO!, good results were achieved by Block Blast! (14 million downloads - 26% of which are organic), Attack Hole - Black Hole Games (11 million downloads), and My Perfect Hotel (11 million).
It's also important to note the growth of Royal Match in downloads - the game rose 23 positions compared to the previous year and gained 20 million new users.
Top Mobile Publishers in the USA
Scopely moved up from the first position on the list of publishers, surpassing Activision Blizzard, earning $946 million against $940 million.
Among lesser-known companies, Light & Wonder ranked tenth in the USA by revenue ($403 million). The company specializes in casino releases.
GSD & GfK: The UK gaming market grew by 2% in December
Analytical platforms report only actual sales figures obtained directly from partners. Major publishers, such as Nintendo, do not share information on digital copy sales. The mobile segment is also not taken into account.
Game Sales
6.9 million copies of games for PC and consoles were sold in the UK in December 2023. This is 2% more than the previous year.
EA Sports FC 24 became the sales leader; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III dropped to the second position; Hogwarts Legacy and Super Mario Bros. Wonder ranked third and fourth, respectively.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora debuted at the 8th position in the charts, despite receiving relatively weak reviews from critics and players.
Console and Accessory Sales
Nearly 500 thousand consoles were sold in the UK in December. This is 2% more than in November and 7% more than in December of the previous year.
PlayStation 5 continues to lead confidently, but system sales fell by 19% compared to the previous month.
Meanwhile, Nintendo Switch saw a sales increase of 39%; Xbox Series S|X showed a growth of 6%.
2.07 million accessories were sold in December. This is 63% more than in November (thanks to the holiday season) and 10% more than the previous year. DualSense, as always, is the sales leader.
Hogwarts Legacy sold 22 million copies in 2023
Approximately 2 million copies were sold during the New Year holidays.
It was previously reported that by the end of March, the game had already sold 15 million copies. The first 12 million were sold within the first 2 weeks.
It turns out that between April and the end of November, 5 million copies of the game were sold. Not bad.
It would be correct to compare Hogwarts Legacy with other large launches. GTA V sold 34 million copies in its first year. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, released in May of this year, sold 19.5 million copies by the end of September. Therefore, despite impressive figures for the year, Hogwarts Legacy did not set any records.
Crunchbase: Investments in gaming startups at venture stages in 2023 reached a minimum since 2018
Crunchbase considered all stages in the statistics until the company went public or was acquired by a strategic investor.
The total funding volume in 2023 at the early stages amounted to $2.71 billion, compared to $13.03 billion in 2022. This is a 79% decrease.
The number of deals decreased by half, from 824 in 2022 to 403 in 2023. Rounds larger than $200 thousand were taken into account.
In 2023, there were no deals with venture investors exceeding $100 million. In 2022, for example, there was a $2 billion round from Epic Games. Additionally, thatgamecompany raised $160 million in a Series D round.
The situation in the US market
The investment volume decreased to $0.93 billion from $6.86 billion in 2022, an 86% drop.
The number of deals fell from 281 in 2022 to 146 in 2023.
Overall market situation
Crunchbase notes that the year was not bad for the entire industry. Take-Two Interactive Software, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, and Sony ended the year with stock values higher than at the beginning of the year. Microsoft completed a deal with Activision Blizzard. It is more accurate to describe the situation not as a market crisis but as a market entry crisis—it is challenging to compete with big players.
There is a slight consolation in all of this. According to Crunchbase, 2023 was so bad that it will not be difficult to surpass it in 2024.
TheGameDiscoverCo: Game Catalogs on PC and Gaming Consoles in 2023
Simon Carles from GameDiscoverCo analyzed the number of games available to players on different platforms at the end of 2023.
I highly recommend subscribing to Simon’s newsletter. It’s well-written, full of insights, and very smart.
The current game catalog on Steam counts 79,919 games. In 2023, 14,535 new projects were released - a new record for the platform.
The number of games on Nintendo Switch is 11,600. Of these, 2,608 projects were released in 2023.
On PlayStation 4 and 5 at the end of 2023, there were 7,288 games, 1,335 of which were released in 2023. Sony's platform is the only one where fewer games were released in 2023 than in 2022 (1,335 compared to 1,635).
Owners of Xbox One and Xbox Series S|X had access to 5,808 games at the end of 2023. 945 of them were released in 2023.
As seen from the graph, Steam is far ahead of all platforms in terms of the number of games. This is explained by the fact that releasing a game on Steam is the easiest.
Several conclusions
More games mean more competition. By releasing a new game, you compete not only with new projects but also with all other games released on the platform. Many of them already have a lot of content and public recognition.
Nintendo Switch gained popularity among indie developers in 2018-2019. Looking at the graphs, it can be seen that the number of games on the platform was small, making it much easier to stand out (and earn). Those times have passed. The console's audience still loves indie games, but available marketing channels need to be utilized.
The back catalog of large and medium-sized companies is growing, and revenue from it is increasing, but the average sales volume per project is decreasing. I assume this is due to increased competition and the need to offer significant discounts on games.