Game Publishing reports and market data
Documents
Panel: What Are Publishers For? Getting the Most Out of Your Publishing Deals.
Publishing partnerships in the modern gaming industry serve as a strategic necessity rather than a mere distribution channel.
- Publishers are now strategic partners providing essential infrastructure—such as user acquisition modeling, data science, and specialized localization—to navigate a market saturated by over 250 weekly Steam releases.
- Successful partnerships require early engagement, where developers integrate publisher expertise in market trends and product positioning during the initial development phase to ensure commercial viability.
- The modern publishing model prioritizes the extended lifecycle and long-term performance of a title over immediate, short-term commercial spikes.
Panel: Interaction & Iteration: Best Practices for Getting the Most out of Your Live Ops Strategy.
Successful live operations strategies in the modern gaming industry necessitate an agile, iterative development mindset that prioritizes long-term engagement over traditional, static release cycles.
- Live operations must be integrated into the initial design phase rather than treated as a post-launch afterthought to ensure infrastructure and support tools are ready for player behavior and scaling.
- The quality of the core game loop remains the primary determinant of long-term success, as live operations cannot compensate for a fundamentally flawed foundational experience.
- Data-driven decision-making, specifically through A/B testing and structured player feedback, is essential for validating mechanics and creating resilient engagement loops.
Panel: Go Big or Go Home: From Indies to Big Conglomerates....
Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the gaming industry by serving as a critical catalyst for production efficiency and creative iteration.
- AI is functioning as a critical catalyst for production efficiency, enabling smaller studios to generate high-quality assets and lower the barrier to entry in a saturated market.
- The industry is shifting toward a model where games act as primary narrative engines for broader intellectual property strategies, prioritizing cross-platform accessibility and frictionless engagement.
- While AI accelerates technical workflows, the market is increasingly valuing authentic, human-led creative vision as the primary driver for competitive differentiation.
Is It The Right Time to Invent New Ways Of Playing & Developing New IPs?
The global gaming industry is currently navigating a period of financial contraction and strategic uncertainty, characterized by a shift away from high-risk innovation toward the preservation of established intellectual property.
- The gaming industry is currently prioritizing the optimization of established 'forever franchises' over radical innovation due to post-COVID market corrections and rising operational costs.
- Major firms like Supercell and Capcom are struggling to balance the preservation of legacy intellectual property with the necessity of developing new, genre-defining experiences.
- Companies are increasingly favoring the acquisition of proven intellectual property over the development of new studios to maximize profitability through standardized tools and infrastructure.
Game Designer to Player Advocate: Trent Oster of Beamdog
The evolution of the gaming industry from the shareware era to the modern live-service landscape is best understood through the career trajectory of Trent Oster, a co-founder of BioWare and current leader of Beamdog.
- Modern game development efficiency is best achieved by adopting standardized engines like Unreal rather than building proprietary technology from scratch.
- Scaling a studio to approximately 70 employees requires a transition from micromanagement to strategic advocacy, specifically focusing on protecting staff from unsustainable labor practices.
- Studios can maintain creative independence from corporate publishers by using the revitalization of legacy titles to generate the cash flow necessary to fund original intellectual property like MythForce.
Keynote Beyond Revenue - Teis Anker Mikkelsen, Founder OF Multiscription.
The primary focus of this analysis is the strategic implementation of in-game subscriptions within the mobile gaming industry.
- In-game subscriptions serve as a critical retention tool to counter rising user acquisition costs and the difficulty of discoverability in crowded app stores.
- Subscription models create a 'sunk cost' effect where players feel compelled to maximize the value of their recurring payment, leading to higher engagement and retention rates.
- A robust monetization strategy should rest on three pillars: ads for non-paying users, in-app purchases for the majority, and subscriptions to establish a reliable revenue baseline.
Keynote Evolving Game Monetisation Retention - Don Reilley, EVP of Publisher Development, Scuti
The current gaming industry faces significant challenges, including rising user acquisition costs, declining ad revenues, and a reliance on disruptive monetization models that often alienate players.
- Integrating 'g-commerce'—a model where players earn rewards through gameplay and shopping—can generate $1.2 million in annual revenue for a game with 100,000 daily active users.
- A single g-commerce interaction can replace the revenue equivalent of five months of disruptive advertising, offering a non-intrusive alternative to traditional ad models.
- While only 5% of gamers currently make in-game purchases, 51% of players express interest in purchasing physical goods directly within a gaming environment.
External and Internal Forces Shaping Voodoo and Ubisoft’s Strategy - Naavik Gaming Podcast
The global gaming industry is currently navigating a period of intense structural realignment, driven by regulatory pressures, shifting consumer engagement models, and the maturation of mobile markets.
- Ubisoft is attempting to stabilize its performance through a major cost-reduction plan and a strategic pivot toward live services, though long-term recovery may require divestitures or external investment.
- Legacy publishers like Ubisoft are struggling with bloated workforces and stagnant open-world production models, necessitating a shift toward quality and brand focus over volume.
- Voodoo is countering declining mobile download rates and privacy-related headwinds by transitioning to a hybrid-casual model integrated with blockchain technology.
How to Find a Unified, Single Source of Truth for your Marketing Team
Mobile measurement partners function as the essential foundation for modern game marketing by providing a unified source of truth that tracks the entire user journey from initial ad exposure to long-term in-game behavior.
- Mobile measurement partners (MMPs) serve as the essential foundation for tracking the full user journey, enabling developers to correlate acquisition sources with long-term retention and monetization metrics.
- The post-App Tracking Transparency (ATT) landscape requires studios to synthesize multiple frameworks—including SKAdNetwork, incrementality testing, and media mix modeling—to mitigate reduced targeting precision and rising acquisition costs.
- Marketing teams must shift from relying on automated black-box algorithms to hypothesis-driven, manual strategies to resolve data discrepancies and eliminate duplicate attribution.
Publishing a Mobile Game On an Esports Tournament Platform - Frank Sliwka, CEO at IB Media Group.
The esports industry presents a significant growth opportunity for mobile game publishers, particularly within the Asia and MENA regions, where the sector is expanding at an annual rate of 30 percent.
- The esports sector in Asia and the MENA regions is currently expanding at an annual growth rate of 30 percent, offering a significant opportunity for mobile game publishers.
- Integrating mobile titles into existing tournament platforms allows developers to leverage established infrastructure to scale from local community engagement to global reach.
- Tournament platforms provide publishers with granular user data, including peak activity times and specific engagement patterns, which are more detailed than standard analytics for optimizing marketing and scheduling.
Panel: State of Play | What’s in Store for the MENA Market in the Next Five Years
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) gaming market is currently undergoing a rapid transformation, evolving from a primarily mobile-centric consumer base into a burgeoning global hub for game development.
- The MENA gaming market is projected to experience tenfold growth over the next five years as it transitions from a consumption-based model to a global hub for game development.
- While mobile gaming remains the dominant platform, there is a rising demand for PC and console experiences, particularly within higher-income GCC countries.
- Market success requires deep cultural localization and the integration of social, community-driven features rather than simple language translation.
The Game Industry of Poland: 2023 Report
The Polish game industry has matured into a formidable global force, characterized by a sophisticated, export-oriented business model that prioritizes premium PC and console development.
- Poland’s game industry generated €1.286 billion in annual revenue as of 2022, driven by a business model that exports 75–90% of its production to international markets like the U.S., China, and Western Europe.
- The sector is experiencing a strategic consolidation phase, with 494 active studios shifting toward larger team sizes and high-budget productions despite a plateau in the total number of studios.
- The industry maintains a strong global competitive position, holding the second-highest share of titles on Steam’s global wishlist and achieving consistent year-on-year growth of 11% to 15%.