Only 2.5% of 2022 PC games hit 50K players per Newzoo, TikTok study

venturebeat.com:

According to a new study from TikTok and Newzoo, the PC and console games market is more crowded than ever before. New games entering the $95.2 billion PC and console games’ market have a hard time reaching players compared to fan-favorite franchises.

The number of PC releases each year has gone up dramatically according to data from SteamDB. In 2022, 12,690 games debuted on Steam growing about 13% on average every year since 2017.

However, its harder than ever before for games to find an audience. Per Newzoo’s Game Performance Monitor, only 307 PC games and 153 console titles released in 2022 reached over 50,000 lifetime players. This is down 50% for PC and 42% for console over the same five year period. Some of this decline is a result of gamers having more time to try older releases, however most games find the majority of their audience at launch.

“We’re seeing that it’s very hard to to get to the first 50,000 players and it’s very hard to sustain them. The competition is quite fierce in this market,” said Assaf Sagy, Head of Global Gaming for TikTok. “The console market has a lot more stability, but supply issues from Covid made it impossible to get new consoles for many.”

GamesBeat Next On-Demand 2023

Did you miss out on GamesBeat Next?  Head to our on-demand library to hear from the brightest minds within the gaming industry on latest developments and their take on the future of gaming.

All of 2022’s top 20 titles by monthly active users (MAUs) were live service games, which makes sense given the business model. More importantly, 90% of this list debuted before 2022 showing how difficult it is to keep players engaged. Moreover, both of the titles released in 2022 that made the list — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare