- Games industry is growing, but much of it involves established titles
- Just five games – Fortnite, GTA V, League of Legends, Minecraft and Roblox – accounted for 27% of all game time played
- Fortnite was the most played game of the year across all platforms
When you sit down for a gaming session, do you look for a new game, or go for an old favorite? If your answer was the latter, then you’re in good company: 60% of the video games played in 2023 were at least six years old, new research has revealed.
Data from Newzoo’s second annual games industry report found that gamers are spending increasing amounts of their time (and money) in well-established franchises. In all, 80% of all gametime in 2023 was spent on just 66 titles, and 60% was spent on games that were first released more than six years ago.
The five most popular games – which accounted for 27% of all playtime – will come as no surprise: Fortnite, GTA V, League of Legends, Minecraft and Roblox.
Even some of the ‘new’ games – defined as being less than two years old – are annual sequels to established titles, such as Madden or FIFA (which is now being continued under another name by Electronic Arts). This made up 23% of ‘new’ games played.
Only 8% of gametime was spent on games that were new and not annual games.
The most played game of 2023 – ranked by monthly active users – was Fortnite, which came out top on every platform.
Newzoo reported that the games industry is continuing to grow – it made $93.5 billion in revenue in 2023, much of that was made by a small number of publishers and developers. The company said this shows that evergreen titles reign, but it makes it challenging for new games to grow a playerbase.
