Quest

2024 Japan Mobile Gaming Market Insights

The Japanese mobile gaming market experienced a complex performance landscape in the first half of 2024, characterized by a modest increase in user engagement alongside a significant decline in total revenue.

• Japan’s mobile gaming market saw a 17% year-on-year revenue decline to $5.3 billion in the first half of 2024, largely driven by the weakening yen, despite a 2.5% increase in download volume to 320 million.
• Bandai Namco Entertainment secured the top spot on the Japanese publisher revenue chart for the first half of 2024, bolstered by a 3.5% quarter-on-quarter revenue increase to $390 million.
• Japan remains the global leader for anime-style mobile games, accounting for approximately 50% of the total revenue generated by the top 50 global titles in this category from January to July 2024.

Hottest News: Gamescom 2024, New Steam Record Breaker and 580 Million Gifts from Epic Games

Gamescom 2024 highlighted several high-profile titles, including Dune Awakening, Little Nightmares 3, and Reanimal, with teaser trailers for Borderlands 4 and Mafia 4 slated for 2025.

• Black Myth: Wukong achieved 2.13 million concurrent players on Steam, becoming the second most-played game in the platform's history and selling over 10 million units in its first three days.
• Epic Games has distributed 580 million free game units since 2018 at a cost exceeding $100 million, while also spending over $300 million on store exclusives between 2018 and 2021.
• Sony’s hero shooter Concord launched to a low peak of 697 concurrent players on Steam, casting doubt on the title's future compared to the success of Helldivers II.

Embracer Group Q1 2024 Financial Results

Embracer Group’s financial results for the first quarter of the 2024 fiscal year, ending June 30, 2024, reveal a period of significant revenue contraction alongside a strategic pivot toward long-term profitability.

• Embracer Group reported a 91% year-over-year decline in new PC and console game revenue, totaling SEK 146 million ($13.9 million) for the quarter ending June 30, 2024.
• Total net revenue for the company fell 24% year-over-year to SEK 7.9 billion ($755.7 million), though net losses narrowed to SEK 2.19 billion ($209.3 million) from SEK 4.44 billion in the prior year.
• The company is shifting its strategy to prioritize owned and controlled intellectual property to improve unit economics and profitability, including active prototyping of new Lord of the Rings game concepts.

Aiming Semi-Annual Report: 14th Term

The Aiming Semi-Annual Report for the 14th term, covering the period from January 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024, outlines the financial performance and operational status of the company within the Japanese smartphone online game market.

• Aiming reported a net loss of 934 million yen and an operating loss of 748 million yen for the first half of the 14th term, ending June 30, 2024.
• Net sales fell to 8,096 million yen, a 10.3% decrease compared to the same period in the previous year.
• The company’s financial performance shifted from an operating profit of 419 million yen in the previous year to a loss in the current period.

COLOPL Consolidated Financial Results for the Nine Months Ended June 30, 2024

COLOPL, Inc. reported a challenging financial performance for the nine months ended June 30, 2024, characterized by a significant decline in revenue and a shift to an operating loss.

• COLOPL reported net sales of 18,318 million yen for the nine months ended June 30, 2024, an 18.5% year-over-year decline.
• The company shifted to an operating loss of 773 million yen, compared to an operating profit of 1,980 million yen during the same period in 2023.
• Profit attributable to owners of the parent fell to a loss of 491 million yen.

Loud and Clear: Improving Accessibility for Low Vision Players in 'Cosmonious High'

Owlchemy Labs has established a new standard for inclusive virtual reality design through a comprehensive accessibility update for the title Cosmonious High.

• Owlchemy Labs implemented a 'describable item system' in 'Cosmonious High' that functions like alt text, using text-to-speech (TTS) to describe interactive objects, journals, and tutorial popups for blind and low-vision players.
• The development team utilized spatialized audio to provide players with a sense of an object's location, using volume and directional sound to help players narrow their search for items in the virtual environment.
• A dedicated 'assist button' was mapped to unused controller inputs, allowing players to trigger or cancel TTS descriptions on demand, giving them control over the information flow and preventing audio clutter.

The Founding of Epic Games and the Quest to Build the Metaverse

The evolution of Epic Games from a small 2D developer to a central architect of the metaverse is rooted in a consistent philosophy of empowering user-generated content and accessible game-creation tools.

• Epic Games, founded by Tim Sweeney in 1991, initially focused on 2D games like ZZT before shifting to 3D with the 1998 hit "Unreal," which sold 1.5 million units by its fourth anniversary.
• The "Unreal Engine," which powered the game "Unreal," was Epic's primary investment, costing about $3 million ($6 million in 2024 dollars) to produce, rather than the game itself.
• Epic Games successfully built a business around licensing the Unreal Engine starting in 1996, generating $250,000–$350,000 in upfront payments and 5%–7% royalties from licensees.

Why Did (or Didn't) This Week's Steam Launches Take Off?

The analysis examines the performance of recent Steam launches, focusing on the significant divergence between medieval colony sim Norland and high-concept platformer SCHiM.

• High wishlist counts are not reliable predictors of launch performance, as evidenced by Norland reaching over 10,000 concurrent users (CCU) while the similarly hyped SCHiM peaked at only 100.
• Core PC genres characterized by depth and replayability, such as colony builders and strategy games, currently drive significantly higher day-one conversion rates than high-concept, shorter titles.
• Chinese-market titles, particularly satire-heavy games and FMV dating simulators, are achieving high CCU counts on Steam despite lacking comprehensive English localization.

Level and Quest Design Collaboration from 'Skyrim' to 'Starfield'

Successful game development at Bethesda Game Studios relies on the deep integration of level design and narrative architecture, moving away from rigid departmental silos toward a model of shared responsibility.

• Establish clear ownership boundaries early: level designers must have final authority over layout and combat encounters, while quest designers retain final authority over narrative, story, and characters.
• Avoid the 'buffer time' trap when scoping complex content; when a project exceeds the capacity of a single designer, it is more effective to split responsibilities between specialized roles rather than simply extending the deadline.
• Foster cross-departmental collaboration by creating shared project-centered goals, allowing teams to bypass bureaucratic overhead and rapidly reallocate resources during critical development phases.

Interviewing Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth: The Metaverse, VR/AR, and AI

Meta’s strategic trajectory centers on the transition from tethered virtual reality to a standalone mixed reality ecosystem, with the ultimate goal of achieving 100 million annual headset sales.

• Meta's investment in Reality Labs began with the Oculus acquisition in 2014, followed by annual spending reaching $5 billion by 2019 and exceeding $10 billion annually by Q4 2020, culminating in the company's rebranding to Meta in 2021.
• Meta's strategy shifted from PC-tethered VR (like Oculus Rift) to standalone devices (like Quest) to avoid being a 'peripheral business' and overcome ecosystem battles with PC platforms like Steam, aiming for mainstream accessibility.
• The launch of Quest 3 has significantly boosted internal momentum, sales, and adoption, leading to a clearer vision for future mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) device generations and increased software development velocity.

Aiming FY2024 Q2 Financial Results: Business Plan and Growth Potential

Aiming faces a transitional period characterized by revenue and profit declines in the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, largely driven by the conclusion of major anime-related events and the natural performance cycles of established titles such as Dragon Quest Tact and The Eminence in Shadow.

What PC Game Genres Have the Most Hype in 2025?

Analysis of Steam tag data from 2024 reveals that complex, PC-centric genres continue to dominate player interest and "hype" scores.

• Open World Survival Craft, Grand Strategy, City Builders, and Farming Simulators remain the most consistently popular PC genres, with Extraction Shooters and Job Simulators emerging as significant high-interest categories.
• Controller usage on Steam has tripled since 2018, now representing 15% of daily sessions, with Xbox controllers holding a 59% market share, PlayStation at 26%, and Steam Deck at 10%.
• Genres including MMORPGs, MOBAs, Looter Shooters, and Souls-likes are 'top-heavy,' meaning their high hype scores are driven by a few massive titles rather than consistent performance across the category.