Market Wire | December 5, 2022

Steam smashes records, Why did Apple & Google name Apex Legends mobile GOTY?, Alternative postsecondary education via gaming, Mobile gaming starts to wane, All major 2022 game acquisitions

Good morning. We’re getting into the final stretch of 2022! Who else is as excited as I am? I’m just starting to process what’s happened this past year which has been super crazy.

Anyway, another new week, another opportunity to whoop some ass; let’s get after it!

Also, there are two new features below for you all.

#1. Check out our trends analysis for big winners and losers regarding downloads and revenue.

#2. Gaming Hot Takes from some folks in the industry.

Enjoy!

Top 10 Charts

Market Data

Top 10 Publishers by Net Revenue

Top 10 Trending Downloads & Revenue

Note: Biggest % download increase in the week with a minimum of 100,000 downloads.

Note: Biggest % revenue increase in the week with a minimum of $70K in net revenue.

Top 5 News

Eurogamer reported that Steam’s analytics showed a new peak of 31,349,780 concurrent players over the weekend of Nov 26th and 27th.

  • During the peak day, the top 10 played games included: CS:GO, Dota 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Modern Warfare 2, Lost Ark, Apex Legends, GTA 5, Wallpaper Engine, and Naraka: Bladepoint

Not so fast! This past weekend, Dec 3rd and 4th, we hit another all-time high of 31,717,393 concurrent players.

Here’s the chart:

Also, here are the top 10 most played games as of this past weekend during this all-time high:

Note that most of the top played games are Free to Play.

Apex Legends Mobile has been named as game of the year by both Apple and Google this week. But why?

Neil Long was formerly at Apple, working in App Store for over seven years. Hence, he knows a thing or two about how the Apple App Store team operates.

According to Neil:

  • While other games could also have been considered for the best mobile game, there are specific reasons why games such as Diablo Immortal or Marvel Snap were not chosen.

  • Diablo Immortal: Both Apple and Google would be hyper-sensitive to bad PR. The negative response to Immortal’s monetization would be too risky for either platform to choose.

  • Marvel Snap: It doesn’t look as cool in screenshots, and platforms want to showcase hardware. Apex Legends does a better job of helping sell phones and tablets using the graphical power of the devices.

  • Ultimately, the decision “will be a mix of branding, PR, platform and business priorities.”

As a father of 3 kids, I know firsthand that our educational system is fundamentally broken. It’s not fair, and it’s not very effective.

I believe technological trends will likely displace many common jobs making education, not only at the K-12 level, but in the postsecondary market critical.

According to Konvoy:

  • Postsecondary education already represents a fairly sizeable market at $68B per year.

  • Growing need for more educational options for adults.

  • Economic downturn accelerating layoffs vastly exceeding those that occurred in 2020.

  • In 2022, ~890 tech companies have laid off nearly 150K employees.

  • Gaming may represent an opportunity to improve or accelerate learning.

Kudos to Konvoy for tackling education and bringing light to this opportunity.

Also, here’s a pretty smart dude I follow on Twitter speaking on the opportunity in education:

GamesBeat reported on a recent report published by data.ai (a sponsor of this newsletter in full disclosure).

So I’m highlighting points from GamesBeat reporting on data.ai’s report. Lol. Here are some points that GamesBeat took away from data.ai’s report:

  • “mobile gaming is starting to decline slightly following its pandemic-era boom, but seems to be steadying at a high watermark.”

  • “worldwide consumer spend on games in February 2020 was $5.24 billion. The same number in September 2022 was $6.5 billion. While the latter number is a big dip from the high of $7.73 billion in July 2021, it is still greater than pre-pandemic spending.”

  • “iOS games have had a rough time monetizing since Apple’s privacy changes — their revenues are still down.”

  • “some games are defying the trend. According to the report, games like Merge Mansion are doing well thanks to effective marketing and in-game narrative hooks.”

  • “Games associated with larger gaming franchises also appear to be doing well regardless. These include Apex Legends Mobile and Diablo Immortal.”

Gamespot reviews and comments on all major video game acquisitions in 2022. Here is the list of acquisitions that they cover in their post:

  • Take-Two Buys Zynga

  • Microsoft Bids For Activision Blizzard

  • Sony Buys Bungie

  • New York Times Buys Wordle

  • Netflix Gets Serious About Games

  • Embracer Continues Its Buying Spree

  • NetEase Buys Quantic Dream

  • Nordisk Buys Supermassive

  • Others

Check out the article for more details.

Weekly Hot Takes

#1. XBOX IP

I think Xbox is on a path to really destroy their own IP with pivots to live service and the management of so many brands under one roof. My evidence is Halo - how do you let that flounder? It's Halo!

Justin Ruiss, Senior Vice President, Media Sector. BWG Strategy

#2. ChatGPT + Gaming

The impact of generative AI on game development is likely to be significant. Generative AI models, such as GPT-3, are capable of generating text and other content based on a given input, which could potentially be used to create game dialogue, characters, and even entire game worlds. This could potentially reduce the amount of time and effort required to develop games, and could also open up new possibilities for creative expression and experimentation.

ChatGPT, AI Bot. Open AI

Well, folks, I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to puke when I see yet another ChatGPT or Lensa AI image on social media. Clearly, people are excited! Lol.

Anyway, looks like generative AI is here to stay and has, as ChatGPT suggests, big potential in gaming. Let’s hope AI doesn’t destroy us at some point in the future!

How big of an impact do you think generative AI or ChatGPT specifically will have on game development in the future?

#3. New Big Hit Games Most Likely from Asia

The next Genshin (behemoth with international appeal) will also come from Asia. We’re seeing more and more that the West is more likely to spend on Asian-themed games than vice-versa.

Ionut Dogaru, Senior Product Manager. Mythical Games.

More from Ionut:

“Data.ai’s report is great, but this is the chart that made me say ‘Daaamn’ for two reasons:

  1. Genshin got to $10M and $100M so fast data.ai couldn’t fit its data labels on the chart. TLDR: it’s six days to $10M and 20 in total to $100M, which might make it the fastest mobile game to $100M ever.

  2. There was no Western developer/publisher on that chart.”

Written by Joseph Kim and Ryan Wilson.

Reply

or to participate.