Player Behavior reports and market data
Documents
UGC Impact Study 2025
The 2025 UGC Impact Study, conducted by GameDiscoverCo and commissioned by mod.io, analyzes the commercial and engagement benefits of integrating official user-generated content (UGC) support into video games.
- Games with official UGC support see a 31% revenue advantage over non-UGC titles after five years, growing from an 8% advantage in the first year.
- UGC support drives long-term player retention, resulting in 75% higher concurrent user counts after two years and 115% higher after five years on PC.
- Official UGC does not cannibalize sales; games with modding support see 105% higher median revenue per DLC, with SnowRunner players using mods being 2.4 times more likely to purchase official DLC.
Is the Past the Future of Gaming?
Remakes and remasters have become a cornerstone of the video-game market, now generating roughly two hundred releases each year and projected to reach about thirty titles in 2025.
- Remakes and remasters have become a major industry pillar, with roughly 200 releases annually and projections indicating 30 high-profile titles for 2025.
- Commercial performance for remakes frequently outperforms original releases, evidenced by the Resident Evil 4 remake achieving 10 million sales within two years.
- Nostalgia is the primary consumer driver, with over 80% of 1,500 surveyed gamers citing the desire for emotional comfort as their main motivation for purchasing updated titles.
Unlocking Games Revenue: Player Behavior and Payment Trends in the West
Unlocking Games Revenue: Player Behavior and Payment Trends in the West examines the evolving monetization landscape across North America and Europe.
- Growth in mature Western markets is plateauing, with projected 2027 CAGRs of only 1.1% in North America and 3.1% in Europe, shifting the focus to maximizing value from existing players.
- North America and Europe represent 46% of global gaming spend despite housing only 20% of the global player base.
- North American players spend an average of $324.90 annually, significantly higher than the $125.40 average annual spend per payer in Europe.
Gaming’s Cheating Crisis Report: The Impact on Players and Profit
The gaming industry is currently facing a significant integrity crisis, with 80% of players reporting encounters with cheaters in online environments.
- Cheating is a pervasive issue, with 80% of online players reporting encounters and over half experiencing unfair play at least several times a month.
- Financial stability is at risk, as 55% of gamers have reduced or stopped in-game spending and 42% have considered quitting specific titles due to cheating.
- Players are highly receptive to stringent security measures, with 73% willing to undergo identity verification and 79% supporting cross-game bans to ensure fair play.
Cross-Platform Gaming: Bridging Mobile and PC/Console
The 2025 gaming landscape is defined by the convergence of mobile accessibility and PC/console depth.
- Mobile remains the primary driver of scale with 52 billion projected downloads and $82 billion in in-app purchase revenue for 2025, while PC and console segments generate over $12 billion from 1 billion units sold.
- Unified cross-platform ecosystems, exemplified by titles like Genshin Impact and Delta Force, significantly improve player retention by enabling seamless progress synchronization across devices.
- Publishers should adopt one of four strategic models—companion apps, 'lite' discovery versions, adapted standalone experiences, or full cross-play—to bridge the gap between mobile reach and PC/console engagement.
From Games to the Big Screen: The Impact of IP Across Platforms
The entertainment industry is increasingly leveraging a transmedia strategy where video game intellectual property serves as the foundation for high-budget scripted content.
- The Fallout television series triggered a 410% surge in daily PC sales for Fallout 4 and sustained a 225% increase in daily active users for legacy titles for up to 20 weeks post-premiere.
- The Minecraft film grossed over $900 million while driving a 44% spike in mobile in-app revenue and a 36% increase in console sales.
- Transmedia adaptations create a symbiotic growth loop that simultaneously boosts gaming metrics and streaming platform performance, such as the 23% increase in Amazon Prime Video downloads following the Fallout series launch.
Mapping IP fandom with the Global Gamer Study
This analysis explores the intersection of intellectual property (IP) fandom and player engagement within the global gaming industry.
- In 24 of 36 surveyed markets, gamers are more likely to play a title featuring an IP they favor, confirming that transmedia collaborations are a primary driver for acquisition and retention.
- IP influence on player engagement varies significantly by region, peaking in South Asia (74%) and Latin America (64%) compared to more reserved engagement in Western Europe and Oceania (45%).
- Global Favorites like Harry Potter and Disney maintain 90% recognition with high sentiment, whereas IPs like DC Comics show extreme regional variance, with 70% awareness in the U.S. versus only 21% in Japan.
Gaming: Your Marketing Cheatcode
Gaming has evolved into a horizontal cultural layer encompassing 3.4 billion global players who utilize interactive platforms to build identity and community.
- Gaming commands 3.4 billion players globally, yet receives less than 5% of total media investment, indicating a significant misalignment between consumer attention and advertising spend.
- Custom in-game experiences can generate up to 100x higher attention levels compared to traditional social media platforms.
- Immersive brand strategies are highly effective, with 55% of players expressing interest in acquiring branded virtual items.
Championing the 25 Retailers and Digital Services Who Connect Music, Video and Games Creators with UK Fans Yearbook
The United Kingdom’s entertainment market reached a historic milestone in 2024, achieving a record valuation of £12.0 billion.
- The UK entertainment market reached a record £12.0 billion valuation in 2024, marking twelve consecutive years of growth and a 50% increase since 2019.
- Digital services and streaming now dominate the industry, accounting for 93% of total revenue, with subscription models driving over 75% of consumer spending.
- Video is the largest sector at £5.0 billion, fueled by an 8.3% rise in Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) to £4.46 billion, which successfully offset the decline in physical media.
Navigating the Botting Industry: Fraud, Cheating, and Multi-Accounting
The gaming industry faces an escalating crisis driven by an unbounded economic structure that allows bad actors to extract value through botting, multi-accounting, and manual fraud.
- The gaming industry is currently the primary vertical for fraudulent traffic, driven by negligible account creation costs that enable large-scale botting and multi-accounting.
- Gaming security infrastructure lags behind financial services due to a historical industry-wide prioritization of user experience over robust defensive measures.
- Effective mitigation requires distinguishing between benign automation—such as quality-of-life tools—and malicious activity through behavioral analysis, hardware-level tracking, and digital fingerprinting.
Why Some Games Just FEEL Good For Some Reason — Mark Brown @GMTK
Game feel, often referred to as game juice, serves as a foundational element in game development that dictates how responsive, satisfying, and immersive a player’s interaction with a title is.
- Game feel is a multi-sensory experience that requires the integration of responsive movement, sound design, particle effects, and animation to create a cohesive, living environment.
- Developers should dedicate significant time to tuning core mechanics, such as jump height and gravity, in a simple prototype environment before building out complex levels.
- Sound design is a critical component of game feel that should be implemented early in development, as even simple effects provide essential feedback that informs the player's experience.
Sticky, Loveable, and Loyal: How Developers Create Winning Games with Psychological Segmentation
Psychological segmentation serves as a transformative framework for modern game development, shifting the industry focus from superficial demographic targeting toward the underlying motivations and cognitive traits that drive genuine player engagement.
- Approximately 84% of games fail within their first three years, often due to a lack of market resonance and failure to achieve necessary scale.
- Psychological segmentation, which analyzes player motivations and personality traits, is a more effective strategy for driving installs and reducing churn than traditional demographic or behavioral targeting.
- Modern players increasingly prioritize 'long-term orientation,' seeking deep, enduring experiences where they can build worlds or characters over time rather than short-term entertainment.