Creating Strategies, Games, and Mission-Driven Teams that Address Disruptive Trends w/YOU| TENCENT, EA & Activision | Inventor | Investor
The info: 60% of playtime in 2023 went to 6-Year-old or older games. The insight: The market is not only holding strong/growing, it is starving for the next big thing. According to a recent game industry report from Newzoo, although the PC and console market saw a 2.6 percent growth in 2023, overall playtime dipped as gamers increasingly focused on a select few older titles such as Fortnite and League of Legends. Games like Baldur's Gate 3, Palworld, and Helldivers 3 (2/3 were released in 2024)were highly successful, yet they don't reach the juggernaut status of Fortnite, Minecraft and GTA. The remarkable success of all three titles in such close succession indicates a significant hunger in the market for the next global sensation—a game or IP capable of rivaling or even surpassing current benchmark titles. Besides Baldurs Gate 3, all games listed above are Live Service games. Players are not tired of Live Service games. They want fun Live Service games.
Ryan Badham
8mo
Live service games have greater time demands which lock players out of other live service games as they don’t have the time to split. Sort of like what happened with WoW and the mmo genre, people just weren’t willing to give up all that investment for the latest thing. Recent unexpected hits like BG3, Lethal Company, Palworld and Helldivers aren’t indicators that people want great live service games (palworld isn’t a live service game), I take it that people just want great games that respect their time.
Robert Wynne
8mo
100% - the way I’d term it is people have their evergreen titles they default to but are searching for new content. They have their “chicken noodle soup” but are on the hunt for the rare bisque, and the content that comes along that satisfies that is voraciously consumed. These evergreen live ops games are the swiping through shorts steady dopamine drip of gaming, plus where a lot of their friends default to hanging out in.
Alaa Esam
8mo
Great insights! The hunger for the next big sensation in gaming is really palpable. It's been kind of quiet for a while.
Senior Director for Social Strategy and Community at Tencent
8moI was talking with my son about this yesterday. We observed, in a similar way to Hollywood, there was a degree of game staleness. With entertainment if you keep repeating, sequelizing, and referring to the mediums staples you create a degrading system of quality (copy of a copy of a copy of a copy). Why play the new version when the old one is better, or just as good and already purchased. This may sound like Kumbaya BS - unless art/entertainment/craft goes back to core human motivations and experience to create a new telling of a story or gameplay experience you lose audience. Eventually, even a ‘good thing’ will become boring.