• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

60% of playtime went to games 6 years and older...

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
A newly released game industry report by market researcher Newzoo shows that while the PC and console market grew 2.6 percent in 2023, overall playtime decreased as gamers spent more and more time in a smaller list of old games like Fortnite and League of Legends.

On April 2, Newzoo released its second annual game industry report, including a ton of data and information on what people were playing and spending money on during 2023. According to Newzoo’s data, the PC and console game market grew and reached $93.5 billion in revenue in 2023. That might seem like good news, but drilling down into the data, it becomes clear that it’s only good news for a small number of publishers and developers.
Newzoo’s data shows that the top 10 games on each platform (ranked by their average number of monthly active users, or MAU) are filled with old, established titles. Fortnite took the crown on all platforms, including Switch and PC. The rest of the lists included titles that won’t surprise you, like Grand Theft Auto V, Counter-Strike 2, Roblox, Minecraft, Rocket League, Apex Legends, Fall Guys, Valorant, and Call of Duty. Across Xbox and Playstation consoles, only one dedicated single-player game cracked the top ten: Starfield.

7a4e0363ebd3887d6aa72c2fb967c3ca.jpg


To further prove that gamers are primarily focused on older games, Newzoo’s data shows that just 66 titles accounted for 80 percent of all playtime in 2023. And 60 percent of that playtime was spent in games that are six years old or older. In fact, in 2023, five old games—Fortnite, Roblox, League of Legends, Minecraft, and GTA V—accounted for 27% of all playtime in the year.

It gets worse. Of the 23 percent of playtime spent in 2023 on new games—defined as 2 years or younger—more than half was spent in big annual sequels like the latest Madden or NBA game. Only 8 percent of video game playtime was spent on new, non-annual titles like Diablo IV or Baldur’s Gate III.


donald-glover-good.gif
 
Last edited:
Yeah no wonder. Between a retro game which is focused on gameplay and fun and a modern game that's focused on my money, I think I'll choose the former any day of the week.
Except these results show that people choose the latter :messenger_tears_of_joy:

"But the core PS audience!"

I'm glad we can put that to bed.
Core PS community spending their time arguing on Twitter :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
Last edited:

StereoVsn

Member
To many games released today are just crap. So it's no wonder.
Just this year we have had Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, P3 Reload, FFVII Rebirth, Unicorn Overlord, Dragons Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin, plethora of indie games and I am sure I missed a few games here.

These are are all good to great titles. Basically economic situation for many people sucks (corpos are doing fine though) so people don’t want to spend $70 and up (more in Europe or South America) on games. It’s not the lack of good titles to play.
 

Edder1

Member
Modern AAA gaming is extremely bland and unappealing, so really this shouldn't be a surprise. I myself constantly replay games from PS3/360 era, it's where a lot of my favourite games are. That era of gaming is still not old enough that graphics and gameplay become unbearable, and many would argue it's the best era of gaming or thereabouts. The PS4/XBOne era still have many interesting titles, but this was the generation where things started to get cynical with excessive microtransactions and focus on live service, with many former highly regarded single player studios making live service games that mainly flopped. The PS5/Series era has been terrible so far (still waiting for "next gen" games) and I see more and more people replay older games because of this. Really well thought out single player games are really hard to come by these days, a trend that I believe will make more and more people turn to games from yesteryear.
 
Last edited:
"But the core PS audience!"

I'm glad we can put that to bed.
Core PS audience for sure plays SP games I think. They are vastly outnumbered by casuals though.

Look at any SP Sony game sales that was not bundled with console and you will get a good idea of their numbers. Am assuming its close to 10-15 million or so.

Rest are all casuals (100 million+ if we look at PS4).

Switch is curious though. Either its owners dont like playing non Nintendo games or a lot of casuals purchased it and its simply collecting dust. I would like to know whats going on here.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Just this year we have had Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, P3 Reload, FFVII Rebirth, Unicorn Overlord, Dragons Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin, plethora of indie games and I am sure I missed a few games here.

What if I told you...they're not.

Morpheus-in-The-Matrix.jpg


Those games have weak engagement numbers because the thought of buying them is greater than the thought of playing them. Let them burn.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Just this year we have had Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, P3 Reload, FFVII Rebirth, Unicorn Overlord, Dragons Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin, plethora of indie games and I am sure I missed a few games here.

These are are all good to great titles. Basically economic situation for many people sucks (corpos are doing fine though) so people don’t want to spend $70 and up (more in Europe or South America) on games. It’s not the lack of good titles to play.

But we also had quite a few failures.
 

Loxus

Member
I thought everyone liked playing single player games and hated live service games? 🤔
 
Last edited:
This is mostly about live service games...which didn't exist that much before.
Most games on that OP have evolved tremendously since they released years and years ago. Fortnite is basically a platform right now. GTA Online is nothing like it was day one as well.

It's not like games releasing now are bad or worse. It's just that games that released a long time ago have evolved and are "current" games right now.

Even something like the old League of Legends on PC is basically a religion at this point, lmao.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Do you ever get tired of being the Man_In_Suit on a board full of people who actually enjoy video games? The shtick is wearing thin.
That’s what the ignore button is for! 😉

I thought everyone liked playing single player games and hated live service games?
SP games do not show up well in engagement metrics with a few exceptions since they are mostly one time play through for majority of folks.

SEGA seems to be satisfied with Infinite Wealth, P3R and Unicorn Overlord sales. Capcom DD2 is doing fine as well. They aren’t going to post Fortnite numbers.

BG3 and Starfield are the exception to the SP rule.
 

Quasicat

Member
It’s interesting how much Sony put into Spider-Man 2 and it not crack the top 10, yet there are several Nintendo Exclusives that did.
Now it’s easy to see why Phil has been wanting to crack into other consoles, other than Minecraft and Starfield nothing else makes a dent on that list.
 

Kadve

Member
No wonder companies are scrambling for live service games.
The problem is that the market is already satiated. its extremely hard to make money on a "new" live service game as people are gonna keep playing what they already are.
It mirrors the MMO market in the mid 2010's or Arena shooters in the mid 2000s. Almost impossible to be profitable there as a new title either.
 

drganon

Member
Do you ever get tired of being the Man_In_Suit on a board full of people who actually enjoy video games? The shtick is wearing thin.
Hopefully he gets banned again soon so we can all get a reprieve from his terrible takes.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Core PS audience for sure plays SP games I think. They are vastly outnumbered by casuals though.

Look at any SP Sony game sales that was not bundled with console and you will get a good idea of their numbers. Am assuming its close to 10-15 million or so.
I'm skeptical.

Those sales are a result of 0 competition from Sony MP games. Helldivers 2 is bigger than all of them at 1/3rd the budget. I think it's clear their core audience prefers MP.
 

kikkis

Member
The problem is that the market is already satiated. its extremely hard to make money on a "new" live service game as people are gonna keep playing what they already are.
It mirrors the MMO market in the mid 2010's or Arena shooters in the mid 2000s. Almost impossible to be profitable there as a new title either.
Hours played decreased so it might suggest people are bit bored with current gaas games so there might be some pent up demand for someone who could hit a home run.
 

twilo99

Gold Member
The problem is that the market is already satiated. its extremely hard to make money on a "new" live service game as people are gonna keep playing what they already are.
It mirrors the MMO market in the mid 2010's or Arena shooters in the mid 2000s. Almost impossible to be profitable there as a new title either.

If someone makes a good game it will be played.. just look at Helldivers 2
 
Stop trying to micro transaction gamers to death.

Stop releasing broken, bug ridden games

Stop forcing GAAS down our throats

Stop ignoring your popular franchises. 15-20 YEARS between Elder Scrolls games is stupid and horrendous asset management.

Make a good game that is fun to play and it will sell. Look at BG3
 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
I'm not even an MP person anymore and I put 300h into Diablo 4 since it launched last summer and will probably put another 50h once the new season drops in May.

Live service games by design are just more engaging than single-player games. 🤷
 

twilo99

Gold Member
I'm skeptical.

Those sales are a result of 0 competition from Sony MP games. Helldivers 2 is bigger than all of them at 1/3rd the budget. I think it's clear their core audience prefers MP.

I must be the minority here, but playing a single player game does very little for me overall because it just feels like I’m playing against AI/bots and I much rather be interacting with other humans instead, so multiplayer games are way more rewarding…
 

Putonahappyface

Gold Member
I'm not surprised. None of the current games interest me personally for one reason or another. I'm currently playing RDR1 for the first time so that'll keep me busy.
 

lem0n

Member
You know, it's funny- the past 5-6 years (since entering my 30s), I always felt like I have been falling out of love with gaming because of my age, lack of time, responsibilities etc etc.. I still do it, but not as much as I used to. I haven't been able to get a new game to hook me. I play older stuff, mainly 360 era games and some PS2 classics. With the odd Forza Horizon 5 or something thrown in. But shit like this makes me think maybe it isn't me as much as the quality of games. Not saying there hasn't been amazing stuff lately, not at all.. but maybe there's a correlation somewhere
 
It’s interesting how much Sony put into Spider-Man 2 and it not crack the top 10, yet there are several Nintendo Exclusives that did.
Now it’s easy to see why Phil has been wanting to crack into other consoles, other than Minecraft and Starfield nothing else makes a dent on that list.
Spider-Man? Most of those games are live serive games. Spider-Man is a single player experience.

I always felt that Nintendo attracted a different audience. People buy Nintendo consoels for Nintendo games mostly.
That was never the case for Playstation. 3rd Party games were always the best sellers in there.
 
One would think that Spider Man has to be in the top 10 but perhaps it has something to do with demographics.

I think it has to do with game length as well. I was hearing people got platinum in 25 hrs with minimal effort. Few people play after that.

I'm skeptical.

Those sales are a result of 0 competition from Sony MP games. Helldivers 2 is bigger than all of them at 1/3rd the budget. I think it's clear their core audience prefers MP.

Are you saying Sony core fanbase will play what ever Sony will throw at them? 😂
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
The problem is that the market is already satiated. its extremely hard to make money on a "new" live service game as people are gonna keep playing what they already are.
It mirrors the MMO market in the mid 2010's or Arena shooters in the mid 2000s. Almost impossible to be profitable there as a new title either.
People want to believe this but the evidence suggests otherwise. Live Service is just getting started.
 

Kacho

Gold Member
Yeah, this is nothing new. The top 10 list on Xbox is always a bunch of live service junk. Not surprised it's the same on PlayStation. It's easy to understand why Jim Ryan was eager to develop 100 live service games. Developing news live service games seems way too risky when people are deeply invested in older titles. It ain't my money though, so whatever.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
You know, it's funny- the past 5-6 years (since entering my 30s), I always felt like I have been falling out of love with gaming because of my age, lack of time, responsibilities etc etc.. I still do it, but not as much as I used to. I haven't been able to get a new game to hook me. I play older stuff, mainly 360 era games and some PS2 classics. With the odd Forza Horizon 5 or something thrown in. But shit like this makes me think maybe it isn't me as much as the quality of games. Not saying there hasn't been amazing stuff lately, not at all.. but maybe there's a correlation somewhere
I've been there, a lot of us have. Hell, a lot of us currently are there. There's a constant debate going on around this subject where some folks don't think its the games or their quality at fault, but more so the people themselves. Which, yeah, people go through motions and can change. But I don't think it's fair to act like games and the industry are in a good/great state ATM, lol.

I recently turned 40, and I constantly have this feeling of, "Man, I'd REALLY like to play _______", but the issue is that the blank(s) I'm thinking of either don't exist anymore, or don't exist at all. Sometimes it's a single player experience, sometimes it's a multiplayer experience. But majority of the time I think a certain game will scratch that itch so I try it, but then it does absolutely nothing for me. It's a cycle that's happening more and more the older I get. Less new games I'm genuinely interested in, while chasing a dragon that may never come, lol.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
The switch from "purchase as success" to "engagement as success" is leading to an explosion of quality and innovation we haven't seen since 2D to 3D. You got to love it.

I think "explosion of innovation" goes somewhat against an article about people still playing 6+ year old games regularly because nothing better's come along for them.

The reality is that this has happened for a long time. World of Warcraft had more subscribers at its peak in 2010 (12m paying $10+ a month) than a lot of these games will ever sell copies - and some of those people are still playing 14 years later. DOTA 2 is 11 years old and still 5th on Steam's all-time concurrent player chart. It's not a new phenomenon.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Are you saying Sony core fanbase will play what ever Sony will throw at them? 😂
No, I think Sonys core fanbase are the gamers who play (engagement) and spend money (mtx) on games. It's our time now.

Morpheus represents the single player gamer.
Agent Smith represents the multiplayer gamer.



When he says "As soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our civilization..."

When AI was replaced with opposing players, the industry became a multiplayer medium.

The Matrix is an allegory about our hobby.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom