Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: September 18 - September 23 (2023)
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Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: September 18 - September 23 (2023)
Both US and European PC/Console market grew in August; Honkai: Star Rail surpassed $1B revenue on all platforms; Xbox leaks & more.
Reports of this week:
Circana: The revenue of the US gaming market in August 2023 increased by 3%.
Newzoo: PC and Console Market in 2023
GSD: Starfield is fifth in the ranking of the largest launches in Europe this year
TIGA: The number of employees in gaming companies in the United Kingdom increased by 15.2% in 16 months
data.ai: Brawl Stars passed $2B in Revenue
Leak: Microsoft's estimated expenditures on acquiring games for Xbox Game Pass
GSD: Games and hardware sales in Europe grew in August 2023
Naavik: Honkai: Star Rail revenue surpassed $1B on all platforms
Starfield's audience exceeded 10M users
Leak: Xbox Series S is three times more popular than Xbox Series X
Niko Partners: The Indian Gaming Market in 2023
AppMagic & WNHub: Top Games by Revenue & Downloads in August 2023
Circana: The revenue of the US gaming market in August 2023 increased by 3%.
The American gaming industry earned $4.2 billion last month.
The growth was driven by content sales (+4% YoY) and accessories (+12% YoY). However, hardware sales decreased by 13% YoY. Nevertheless, this trend is positive, as the decline in July was 19%.
Games
Madden NFL 24, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, and Remnant II were the best-selling games in the US market in August 2023.
Mobile market revenue increased by 2.5% YoY. Monopoly GO took the first place, surpassing Royal Match.
Playrix is the only publisher in August with two games in the top 10 mobile games chart.
Hardware
PlayStation 5 remains the best-selling console in the USA both in terms of the number of systems and dollar sales. Xbox Series S|X came in second place.
Newzoo: PC and Console Market in 2023
Market
In 2022, there were 1.1 billion PC gamers and 611 million console gamers worldwide.
The revenue from PC and console segments in 2022 amounted to $92.3 billion, which is 2.2% lower than in 2021.
According to Newzoo, by the end of 2022, 172.1 million Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X units were sold. In 2023, this number will increase to 212.9 million, mainly due to the PS5.
Segments
The console segment accounts for $51.8 billion in revenue (56.2% of the total), PC games account for $38.2 billion (41.3%), and browser-based PC games makeup $2.3 billion (2.5%). They have always been categorized separately.
In 2022, only the PC segment grew by 1.8%. The console segment declined by 4.2%, and browser games on PC decreased by 16.7% year-on-year.
From 2015 to 2022, the PC and console market grew at an average annual growth rate of 5.8%. During this period, the console segment outpaced PC growth by two times (+7.8% CAGR vs. +3.6% CAGR).
Regions
North America was the largest region for PC and consoles in 2022, accounting for $31.2 billion in revenue (34% of the total). The Asia-Pacific region was slightly behind, with revenue of $30.2 billion (33%). Europe followed with $24.3 billion (26%), Latin America with $4.2 billion (5%), and the MENA region with $2.5 billion (3%).
The United States ($29 billion) and China ($15.2 billion) are the leading markets for PC and consoles. Among the regions, MENA (+2.9% YoY) and Latin America (+0.7% YoY) showed growth.
Consumer Preferences
Gamers spent over 100 billion hours on PC/console games in 2022.
On average, a player's lifetime value (LTV) in the USA on PC or consoles is over $200.
Microtransactions account for 31-32% of all revenue on PC and consoles. The share of DLC revenue on consoles is higher (13% vs. 7% on PC).
Games
Fortnite had the highest average Monthly Active Users (MAU) on Xbox and PlayStation in 2022. On PC, it was only surpassed by ROBLOX and Warzone 2.0 (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II).
Adventure games are the most extensive genre (83% of players) on PC and consoles, but players spend only 12% of their time on these games. Shooter games (20%) and Battle Royale games (17%) lead in playtime, reaching 77% and 74% of the audience, respectively.
13 out of the 20 most popular games on PC and consoles are Free-to-Play (F2P). Three games (Overwatch 2, Fall Guys, and The Sims 4) transitioned to this model in 2022.
GSD: Starfield is fifth in the ranking of the largest launches in Europe this year
The game is positioned behind Hogwarts Legacy, Diablo IV, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
In the case of Starfield, not only the sales of the launch week were taken into account, but also several additional days of sales of the Premium edition. However, download data from Game Pass did not make it into the ranking.
Starfield has already become the largest launch on Xbox in this generation. The previous record belonged to Forza Horizon 5.
TIGA: The number of employees in gaming companies in the United Kingdom increased by 15.2% in 16 months
The number of employees grew from 20,975 people in December 2021 to 24,155 people in April 2023. The total number of individuals involved in the gaming industry workforce has increased to 25,026 - this figure includes freelancers.
The number of studios in the United Kingdom during the same period increased by 17.8% - from 1,528 to 1,801.
22.4% of all employed individuals in British companies are located in London.
The annual contribution of gaming companies to the UK economy increased from £2.9 billion in 2021 to £3.68 billion in 2023.
data.ai: Brawl Stars passed $2B in Revenue
In the last 12 months, the game has earned $86.3 million. $40 million came from the United States and $16.7 million from South Korea.
The game has joined 39 other games and 12 applications that have surpassed this milestone.
Brawl Stars, which was soft-launched in June 2017, is the most successful mobile Brawl game in history.
❗️In December 2022, Supercell changed the monetization in the game by removing loot boxes. As a result, the project's revenue continued to decline. More details can be found in the material from Deconstructor of Fun. The overall decline in revenue (as seen by analytical services) may also be related to a shift of some payments to the web store and the departure from Russia.
In the last 12 months, the game has been downloaded 37 million times. Brazil, Turkey, and the United States contributed the most. In total, the game has been downloaded 376 million times.
Leak: Microsoft's estimated expenditures on acquiring games for Xbox Game Pass
Internal correspondence from Microsoft has leaked online, discussing the addition of games to the Xbox Game Pass library and providing approximate figures that developers would require.
Microsoft expected the highest demand from EA for Star Wars Jedi Survivor - $300 million. Microsoft representatives referred to the deal as "beautiful but economically impractical."
According to Microsoft, Ubisoft would request $100 million for Assassin's Creed Mirage on its release day.
It was anticipated that the developer of Dying Light 2 would request $50 million. However, Microsoft had doubts that the developers would be able to release the game on time.
The inclusion of GTA V in Game Pass was estimated by the American platform holder at $12-15 million per month. But there was uncertainty about whether Rockstar would agree to keep the game in the subscription for more than 3-4 months.
As for the recent hit Baldur's Gate III, Microsoft "valued" it at $5 million. And the assessment by management was not the highest.
GSD: Games and hardware sales in Europe grew in August 2023
GSD reports only on actual sales figures obtained directly from partners. Major publishers like Nintendo do not share sales data for digital copies, for example.
Games
10.7 million games were sold in Europe in August of this year. This is 29% more than the previous year, excluding the sales of Baldur’s Gate III.
The top-selling game was FIFA 23, with a significant portion of sales coming from Nintendo Switch. Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) came in second place (sales increased by 40% YoY), and Hogwarts Legacy ranked third.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon was the most successful new release of the month, reaching the 4th position in the chart.
Consoles and Accessories
Console sales in Europe (excluding the UK and Germany) increased by 67% compared to the previous August.
PlayStation 5 sales in August 2023 increased by 197% YoY, indicating that Sony has fully normalized its supply chains.
Nintendo Switch sales dropped slightly, by only 1% compared to August of the previous year.
However, Xbox Series S|X sales in Europe declined by 12%. We are waiting for the September results to determine if the launch of Starfield had an impact on sales.
Accessory sales in August increased by 36% compared to the previous year. DualSense controllers were the top-selling accessory, with a growth rate of 170%.
Naavik: Honkai: Star Rail revenue surpassed $1B on all platforms
For the calculation, Naavik used revenue results from analytical platforms and revenue coefficients from Genshin Impact in China and on PC.
Honkai: Star Rail's revenue outside of China as of the end of August reached $299.9 million.
In China, the game earned $516.6 million on mobile devices.
Naavik specialists estimate Honkai: Star Rail's PC revenue at $272.7 million worldwide.
The game is soon to be released on PlayStation 5, which is expected to boost revenue.
💬 David Jiang, the producer of Honkai: Star Rail, noted that miHoYo plans to support the game for at least another 6 years. The largest updates will be the "Worlds," and each of them takes approximately a year to develop.
Naavik analysts note that Honkai: Star Rail is cannibalizing Genshin Impact's revenue. Currently, miHoYo's total revenue is only slightly higher than it was before the release of Honkai: Star Rail. Users also spend 20% less time (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan) to 34% less time (China, USA) in Genshin Impact.
One of the key issues is that Honkai: Star Rail's revenue per download (RPD) is not only lower than Genshin Impact but also lower than competitors like RAID: Shadow Legends, Marvel Strike Force, and others. This means that miHoYo has attracted a portion of the Genshin Impact audience to a project that monetizes less effectively.
Naavik believes that the monetization issues with Honkai: Star Rail are linked to a more lenient gacha system and a lack of content for high-level users.
A full breakdown of Honkai: Star Rail is available in Naavik's Deep Dive material through the link.
Starfield's audience exceeded 10M users
The figure includes both players who purchased Starfield and those who obtained it through Gamepass.
Bethesda has called Starfield the largest launch in its history.
Leak: Xbox Series S is three times more popular than Xbox Series X
We continue to examine Microsoft's leak. The leaked data is dated 2022.
74.8% of the Xbox Series audience bought the lower-end console, Xbox Series S.
This means that the audience for the Xbox Series X is 25.2%.
In July of this year, Microsoft reported 21 million consoles sold. If the distribution has remained the same, Xbox Series X sales now are around 5-6 million.
❗️ If this figure is correct, the sales gap between PS5 and Xbox Series is becoming even more substantial. The gaming consumption model for Xbox Series S players differs from that of "core gamers" who purchase PS5 and Xbox Series X. They buy new releases less often, and use discounts and subscriptions more frequently.
Niko Partners: The Indian Gaming Market in 2023
In 2023, the Indian gaming market is projected to reach $868 million, excluding real-money gaming. By 2027, it is forecasted to grow to $1.581 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 17.2%.
❗️ In 2022, Newzoo estimated the Indian gaming market at $2.2 billion, including real-money gaming.
This is the fastest-growing major gaming market in Asia. It is expected that the number of gamers in the country will increase by 343% from 2017 to 2027, reaching 641.2 million. In comparison, China's audience growth during a similar period will be 21%.
Currently, there are 444.4 million gamers in India.
96.8% of Indian gamers play on mobile devices.
31% of users make in-game purchases.
71.8% of Indian gamers engage with esports, either by participating in competitive gaming disciplines, watching tournaments, or taking part in competitions themselves.
The growth in income, internet penetration, and smartphone adoption (even in the lower-priced categories) are the main drivers of this growth.
AppMagic & WNHub: Top Games by Revenue & Downloads in August 2023
Revenue
Honor of Kings continues to lead. In August of this year, the game earned $122.8 million, with the entire sum coming from China.
Monopoly GO continues to storm the sales charts. The game earned $79.7 million in August, which is 39% more than the previous month.
Genshin Impact dropped out of the top 10 in terms of revenue, but Honkai: Star Rail rose to the 5th spot.
Downloads
The August download chart features 6 new games. Tic Tac Toe - 2 Player XO climbed the highest, with 16 million downloads. It's a collection of minimalist games (including tic-tac-toe) that you can play with friends.
My Perfect Hotel by SayGames entered the top 10 for the first time (the game has 13.4 million downloads). It's a hotel management simulator. Until August 2023, downloads were averaging 2-5 million per month.