Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: September 29 - October 3 (2025)
Massive Sensor Tower report of the PC/Console market in 2025; concerning numbers of layoffs by Amir Satvat & Roblox top-100 games performance.
Reports of the week:
Sensor Tower: PC and Console Market in 2025
Amir Satvat: Over 50% of layoffs in the games industry happened in California
Roblox: Top-100 Roblox developers are earning millions of $ a year on average
AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in September 2025
Sensor Tower: PC and Console Market in 2025
The company released a report based on VG Insights data, which recently became part of Sensor Tower.
❗️The report came out at the end of August and covers the period from the beginning of 2025 up to August 3, 2025.
State of the PC and Console Market
1.1 billion games were downloaded on PC and consoles in the first 7+ months of 2025. Steam accounted for 409 million downloads, PlayStation had 376 million, and Xbox had 283 million.
That 1.1 billion downloads may look like a big number on paper, but compared to 30.4 billion mobile installs in the same period, it is relatively small. However, a significant portion of PC and console downloads are paid games.
Paid games on Steam in 2025 are on track to hit a record. Already, sales are 15% higher than last year (also record-high). By the end of the year, paid games on Steam are expected to generate more than $12 billion.
Action, shooters, and RPGs are the most popular genres on PC and consoles by downloads. Sports titles also perform strongly on consoles. On mobile, however, top genres are simulators, arcades, and puzzles, a very different split.
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Among AAA games, sports titles (EA Sports FC, NBA 2K, UFC), racing (Forza, Need for Speed, F1), and shooters lead in average downloads.
In the AA segment, action and RPGs are the strongest (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II).
In indie projects sample, shooters are way ahead. Examples listed include Splitgate 2, High on Life, and Ready or Not.
❗️Calling a game like Splitgate 2, which is developed by a studio that raised over $100 million, an “indie project” is debatable. There’s no perfect taxonomy.
According to Sensor Tower, the share of F2P titles by downloads is: PlayStation – 17%; Steam – 21%; Xbox – 39%. The rest are paid projects. Slightly surprising, considering the dominance of Fortnite, Roblox, CS 2, and other live-service heavyweights.
Looking at scale, Steam is the main platform for indie developers by downloads: 60% of Steam downloads are indie titles, compared to 34–35% on PlayStation and Xbox.
Top PC/Console Publishers
Electronic Arts was the most popular publisher from January to August 3, 2025, with 82.8 million downloads. For comparison, Microsoft had 75.4 million and Sony had 55.4 million. EA’s number will grow by year-end thanks to major sports releases traditionally dropping in late summer–early fall.
Besides strong PC/console performance (downloads include purchases), EA’s mobile business is also doing well, with 380+ million downloads in just over 7 months of 2025.
Microsoft shows a similar picture: 75 million PC/console installs plus 452 million on mobile, with more than half from King titles.
Sony’s mobile footprint is much smaller: mobile downloads are nearly 4x fewer than its PC and console installs.
Microsoft spent the most on advertising in the US during this period - $44.2 million. They’re followed by Epic Games ($40.6 million) and Take-Two ($26.3 million).
Most leading publishers are diversified, although some specialize (EA – sports, Capcom – RPG). NetEase is an outlier, with 93% of revenue coming from shooters.
Outside the top 10, publishers with strong download figures include Kepler Interactive (14.75 million), SEGA (same), Deep Silver (14.47 million), Square Enix (9.16 million), and unexpectedly semiwork, creators of R.E.P.O (8.27 million).
Regionally, US publishers dominate with 38% of all PC/console downloads. Japan holds 15%, and France 10%.
Top PC/Console Titles
EA Sports FC 25 was the most popular PC/console title in the first 7+ months of 2025.
❗️There may be a mistake in the chart: for example, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had sold 4.4 million copies by September 15. The graph likely counts Xbox Game Pass downloads, meaning it shows overall downloads, not sales.
EA Sports FC 25 (12M copies), Monster Hunter Wilds (11.7M), and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (8.5M installs) were the top premium titles by downloads in 2025.
By MAU, the leaders were Counter-Strike 2 (39.2M), Fortnite (38.7M), and Minecraft (28.2M).
Among F2P titles, top US ad spenders were Fortnite ($17.8M), Roblox ($9.6M – PC/console only), and Valorant ($8.1M). For premium projects, Splitgate 2 ($9.3M), Assassin’s Creed Shadows ($8.6M), and Civilization VII ($8M) led the way.
Sensor Tower notes that Call of Duty has more DAU on mobile than on PC/console - 64–65% vs 35%. A reminder of how crucial good mobile adaptation is for franchises.
Webshop experience shouldn’t be static. That’s why Xsolla provides:
Adaptive Offer Chains that evolve with each purchase. Helps to increase spending.
A Discord Bot that brings commerce capabilities directly into Discord servers to communicate with the audience through many surfaces.
Browser-based push notifications (told you about many surfaces?). This particular feature brings up to a 30%+ conversion increase in real cases!
On mobile DAU, the US (18.3%), the Philippines (17.7%), and Mexico (8.3%) lead. On PlayStation, US players dominate (48.6%). On Steam, China is #1 with 21.8% DAU, followed by the US at 14%.
Call of Duty players are most likely to also engage with other shooters, American football, and…Rooftops & Alleys: The Parkour Game.
In marketing, Monster Hunter Wilds ramped up US advertising about a month before launch, shifting from TikTok/Reddit pre-launch to OTT post-launch, with ads focused on epic gameplay showcases.
Another success story is R.E.P.O. - it grew strongly due to virality, retaining over 200K DAU after 5 months. The game sold 50K+ copies right at launch, an excellent start for an indie project.
VGI and Sensor Tower highlight franchise power. For example, the Shadow of the Erdtree update brought back more than half of Elden Ring’s launch CCU. Meanwhile, Elden Ring Nightreign, though smaller in CCU, seems to keep retention better.
As of writing, Hollow Knight: Silksong hasn’t been released yet, making it the most wishlisted project on Steam. Other big wishlist titles include Deadlock (2.97M), Subnautica 2 (2.2M), and Arena Breakout: Infinite (1.96M, already out too).
Amir Satvat: Over 50% of layoffs in the games industry happened in California
Amir is the founder of Amir Satvat’s Games Community, a group that helps game industry workers find jobs. He has helped more than 4,000 people land new roles.
Over 70%, and in some years more than 75%, of all layoffs happened in North America.
Previously, North America accounted for up to 40% of new job openings. Now that number has dropped to 25%. Overall, the total number of employees in the games industry has fallen back to pre-COVID levels.
At the same time, more than 50% of international layoffs happened in California.
❗️Amir does not specify the exact time frame for this data.
Amir began collecting job market data for the games industry in mid-2022. Back then, remote roles made up 25–30% of open positions. Now that share has dropped to 10–13%.
Amir also shared concerning numbers about the job market. If you have less than 3 years of experience in the games industry, your chances of getting hired are only 5–7%. For others, that number rises to 15%. For “industry veterans,” chances go up to 30–35%. But if you’re over 50, the chance drops dramatically again to 5–7%.
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Programmers have the easiest time finding jobs. For game designers, it’s 9 times harder. For narrative designers and writers, it’s 22 times harder compared to programmers.
85% of people looking for jobs in games end up being employed outside the games industry.
Amir does not consider AI an existential threat to jobs. According to his observations, the share of job openings that mention AI (such as AI artist or AI engineer) has grown only slightly over the past few years – to about 3–6% of total listings.
Roblox: Top-100 Roblox developers are earning millions of $ a year on average
At the Roblox Developer Conference 2025, new numbers about earnings on the platform were shared. The data covers the period from June 2024 to July 2025.
The top 1000 developers make an average of $980,000 per year. That’s 2.9 times more than in 2020.
The top 100 earn about $7 million per year – a 2.8x increase compared to 2020.
Finally, the top 10 developers on Roblox earn on average $38.5 million annually. That’s 2.2 times more than five years ago.
The median payout across all Roblox developers is $1,440 per year.
Xsolla recently released the global gaming market map, which covers more than 200 regions.
This is a gigantic work, each market has:
Main market numbers (population, gaming revenue, distribution of revenue by platform and much more).
Top video game genres.
Recommendations for game localization.
Largest game development studios & games from the region.
Cultural considerations & local holidays.
Top streaming platforms, influencers, local shows.
Salary benchmarks for the gaming industry.
Payment data, taxes information, and legal considerations.
So far, it is the most comprehensive database of the gaming market I’ve seen so far (excluding my newsletter, of course, ha-ha).
200+ countries covered, and there is a very sweet opportunity to download the data for the pitch in the .pdf format (based on the market).
On July 24, 2025, Roblox replaced EBP (Engagement-Based Payouts) with the Creator Rewards program. The difference is that previously payouts were based on the time paying users spent in a game, while now the platform considers multiple factors – such as user activation or re-activation, whether the game is among the first three visited by the user that day, and more.
According to Roblox, after these changes, 73% of developers started earning more. Additionally, 171% more developers earned at least 5 Robux.
The company also noted that over 160 projects on the platform had more than 1 billion visits in the past 12 months.
AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in September 2025
AppMagic reports revenue data net of store fees and taxes. Revenue from Android stores in China is not included.
Revenue
For the first time in a long while, the mobile version of Roblox took the top spot for revenue - the platform made $122.3 million in September.
Honor of Kings dropped significantly (down to third place, which hasn’t happened in a long time) - the game earned $115.7 million in September.
Kingshot’s growth stalled in September, reaching the same numbers as August 2025 — $66.4 million.
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One game consistently increasing month over month is Delta Force. In September, the game made just over $58 million, almost 1.5x growth over the previous month. According to AppMagic, 97% of revenue comes from China.
Downloads
The top three by downloads remain unchanged - Roblox (24.5 million), Block Blast! (17.8 million), and Subway Surfers (17 million).
A new game entered the top 15 in September - Prison Escape Journey from Vietnam’s XGame. This is a first-person prison escape simulator that was downloaded nearly 15 million times in a month. 29% of installs came from India, with Pakistan, Brazil, and Indonesia also leading.
Clash Royale had its best download month since June 2017 in September. The game was downloaded 11.2 million times. At the end of August, the 2v2 mode was reintroduced, which likely helped downloads.