This year’s best prediction for the game industry in 2025 already came from Swen Vincke, CEO of Larian Studios, maker of Baldur’s Gate 3, the Game of the year in 2023.
At The Game Awards this year, Vincke got to announce the new Game of the Year (Astro Bot), and he made a prediction.
“The oracle told me that the Game of the Year 2025 is going to be made by a studio who found the formula to make it up here on stage,” Vincke said. “It’s stupidly simple, but somehow it keeps on getting lost. A studio makes a game because they want to make a game they want to play themselves. They created it because it hadn’t been created before. They didn’t make it to increase market share. They didn’t make it to serve the brand. They didn’t have to meet arbitrary sales targets, or fear being laid off if they didn’t meet those targets.”
The audience erupted into applause at his words, and he was not drummed off the stage for taking too much time.
He added, “Furthermore, the people in charge forbade them from cramming the game with anything whose only purpose was to increase revenue and didn’t serve the game design. They didn’t treat their developers like numbers on a spreadsheet. They didn’t treat their players as users to exploit. And they didn’t make decisions they knew were short-sighted in function of a bonus or politics. They knew that if you put the game and the team first, the revenue will follow.”
He closed with, “They were driven by idealism, and wanted players to have fun, and they realized that if the developers don’t have fun, nobody was going to have any fun. They understood the value of respect, that if they treated their developers and players well, the same developers and players would forgive them when things didn’t go as planned. But above all they cared about their games, because they love games. It’s really that simple.”
Back to my own comments here. I wish the industry would follow that logic. As a bonus, here’s my tips and tricks for CES 2025.
My predictions are foolish
Predictions are foolish to make and yet the temptation to rush back into the breach is always a pull for me. The future is terrifying the more unknown it is, and so I and many other prognosticators try to see a pattern in the darkness ahead.
All I can say once again is that I hope you are well and that we’ll all have a better year in 2025 than we had in 2024. I am not optimistic. This year was marked by 14,000 layoffs, bringing the total laid off in the past 2.5 years to 34,000. I was hoping that would not happen, and I hope the bleeding stops in 2025.
Let’s review what we’ve seen in recent years that threw off our predictions. The pandemic created a whipsaw, where we saw a huge growth in online demand for games as people couldn’t go out. Then it contracted again as people were able to travel and do other things again. Game venture capitalists poured money into game startups in hyped areas such as blockchain, metaverse and AI.
Geopolitical tensions also changed many markets like Russia, China and Israel, and new funding sources emerged in the Middle East in places like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Many game startups that couldn’t raise secondary funding rounds went belly up. There were too many games arriving on platforms such as Steam, and only a handful came out as winners. So the winners and losers concept is alive and well in the game industry. Now we’ll see if there is a chance for a broader recovery.
The structure of the industry will likely further change thanks to the closing of the $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard and its first full year of operation under Microsoft. We’ll see if the addition of Call of Duty to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will move the needle on the subscription business model. And we’ll see if only the massive game companies, with their massive marketing muscle, will get all of the attention from players.
I’ll continue to wager we can expect games to continue to outgrow other forms of entertainment. I expect that trends such as Hollywood transmedia, the metaverse, Web3, cloud gaming, esports, mixed reality, user-generated content and other trends will come along to reinvigorate the game industry — as well as great new games in the core areas of the PC, console and mobile game industries. I’m so glad that we have one beacon ahead: Grand Theft Auto VI is likely coming in the fall of 2025.
For the usual comparison and embarrassment, here are my predictions for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012. At the bottom of the story, I’ve also given myself grades for the predictions I made a year ago for 2023. This year, I got nine “A” grades and two “C” grades.
I got a lot of help from friends on social media for these predictions and there were a lot more than I could write about. Among those I left out? Larry Pacey’s suggestions on “fewer new live-service launches” and “the rise of double-A games”; and Chris Heatherly’s whether game revenues will stagnate or grow. I appreciate the suggestions and regret I can’t credit everyone here.
My predictions for 2025
(1) Grand Theft Auto VI will be the game of the year
Rockstar Games has superb mindshare among gamers, and it has done a great job building buzz for Grand Theft Auto VI. The first trailer generated more than 228 million views on YouTube when it came out a year ago. There is so much pent-up demand for this title, as the previous game Grand Theft Auto V debuted in 2013. After 11 years, that title has sold more than 205 million copies to date, generating perhaps $12 billion at retail.
Thousands of developers are working on the latest version. And while superstar developers on Grand Theft Auto V — Leslie Benzies and Dan Houser — have left Rockstar, Houser’s brother Sam Houser is still running Rockstar and so you can expect a lot of continuity in the game’s production values. The game trailer showed the title will take place on familiar ground in a fictional setting in Miami, it features strong characters from the criminal underworld, and it is loaded with realistic 3D graphics and pop culture. That’s a formula that Rockstar created years ago and it will likely work again, given the power of franchises in today’s gaming business.
I think the only thing that could derail this from being Game of the Year would be if it were delayed into 2026. That is possible, but the forecasts from parent company Take-Two Interactive have been getting more and more specific. We don’t know the launch date yet (other than the fall of 2025), but you can bet every other game will avoid coming out at the same time as Rockstar’s latest title. And I expect that Rockstar will continue with its games-as-a-service strategy, where it would likely launch a new version of Grand Theft Auto Online once GTA 6 comes out.
(2) Game layoffs will continue, but the game job market will get better
We have a wide and diverse gaming economy now where there will be both improvements and setbacks at the same time. This mean game layoffs will continue, but it’s still possible to have an improvement in the overall job market for game companies as revenues recover.
Amir Satvat, the game job champion (who was honored as a Game Changer award winner at The Game Awards) has provided the most transparent information on supply and demand for game jobs, and he has been predicting for a while that job hires and losses will hit an equilibrium on a 60-day trailing basis in December 2024, though he has now moved that to January. If that’s true, there will be more hiring than firing in January, for the first time in about 31 months. We’ll see if that holds true for 2025.
How this really goes depends on a lot of things, like the health of the global economy and whether AI will create or eliminate jobs. There are too many companies working on too many games. Many of them won’t be winners and they will likely lay off staff. But I believe that demand will pick up as we near the launch of new devices (like Nintendo’s Switch 2) and games on my most-anticipated games list of 2025 get released.
If anything, I believe in the law of gravity. We’ve had such a long down cycle that it feels like things can only get better. The demographics favoring games — especially titles like Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft and mobile games — are only going to get stronger and the pie will get bigger. Such tidal change that comes with that generational force is hard to spot, but I am still optimistic that game developers of all types will surprise and delight us with their creativity when it comes to making outstanding games.
(3) AI games will come on strong
All game companies are working on this technology in some way. For the longest time, AI has made a big difference in making games more fun. Just look at Left 4 Dead and No Man’s Sky, which have used AI to create adaptive and procedurally generated content. But the onset of generative is spurring more AI in gaming.
Electronic Arts recently demoed a variety of AI tools in the works at the company, such as a large language model consisting of only EA’s copyrighted content going back decades. To make its EA Sports College Football on time, EA used machine learning to help its artists create more than 11,000 college football athlete likenesses in just three months. That’s a lot more efficient than what used to happen.
Based on all of the pronouncements from big companies and statements from game startups, you can bet that game companies are kicking the tires on AI tools from game startups aimed at making game development faster, cheaper and easier. They may, like EA, be making their own or they may be betting on startups like Inworld AI that have talent from both AI and games in-house. AI can make our worlds more dynamic and personalized to exactly what we want.
The game startups are using generative AI to make non-player characters (NPCs) smarter in their games. They could be working on AI art generation, with tools like those from Didimo designed to make it easier to create a thousand variations of NPCs to fill out a crowd in a game. And they could be trying to come up with new types of gameplay where they can give players smart AI companions to help them finish games in a more satisfying way.
I think there will be vast ramifications from the use of AI in games. We already see that in the ongoing strike by SAG-AFTRA’s voice actors, who want control over and fair payment for the use of their voices when it comes to AI generation of voice in games.
But the genie is coming out of this bottle, and a brave new world awaits. AI is already getting used a lot in gaming, but I really have no clue what’s going to happen with its myriad consequences down the road.
(4) Blockchain gaming will face its biggest test in the market
There are arguments on both sides about whether blockchain games will fail or take off in 2025. Many seasoned game devs like Josef Fares have gone on the record saying that blockchain games are fad with too many scams that will fade because there just isn’t enough utility for Web3 gaming.
Chainplay found in an analysis that 93% of Web3 gaming projects are dead. On average, 316 new Web3 gaming projects launch each year, but 262 projects disappear, indicating that a significant number struggle to stay afloat for more than a few months. About 95% have see their token prices drop after hitting their trading peaks. Altogether, 3,200 such projects have been announced.
But Chainplay noted that some venture funds like Alameda Research have navigated this environment well, earning a 713% return on invested capital. Such firms can plow their proceeds back into Web3 game startups to keep trying for the big score. The market capitalization for blockchain games sits at $25 billion today, acccording to Coin Gecko. That means not everyone has given up. Again, that’s plenty of money to experiment with.
Meanwhile, blockchain games like Hamster Kombat have generated hundreds of millions of downloads on Telegram, which is an unfettered and crypto-friendly messaging service favored by the crypto crowd. That demand can go poof in an instant as soon as tokens related to those games launch and fall short. But Telegram and new chains like Base are providing a lifeline to some companies as they experiment with new models and creativity.
Hardcore games like Off the Grid are also arriving on the blockchain, and casual fare like Pixels and Pirate Nation continue to pick up where Axie Infinity left off. The big-budget games take years to gestate, and some of them are finally coming out of a long development pipeline, said Yat Siu, executive chairman of Animoca Brands, which has invested in 540 Web3 gaming companies.
Many of these companies that have raised money have big war chests, as blockchain games have commanded as much as half of all game fundings in any given year during the past three years. And crypto is likely to get a pass from the incoming Trump administration. Depending on your point of view, for good or bad, 2025 is likely one of the years that will make or break this much-castigated trend. If you’re wondering which titles could take off, check out the Gam3 awards list.
(5) Other regions will continue to emerge with triple-A games
Black Myth: Wukong sold more than 25 million copies since August, according to Niko Partners. It was a rare triple-A game that succeeded on the global stage, even though it was made with local Chinese content by local Chinese game developers. It turns out this resonated far better on the global stage than many predicted, and it’s a sign that games are following in the footsteps of the global film and TV industry, where we’ve long seen huge international audiences for fresh content like South Korea’s Squid Game.
While China has been huge in free-to-play games like Genshin Impact, it has lagged the West and Japan in making triple-A titles, Niko said. But Black Myth: Wukong is now the most-played single-player game in Steam history, with more than 37 million people logged into it on August 25.
For more on this subject, check out a fireside chat I had with Matthew Ball, author of the bestselling book The Metaverse, CEO of Epyllion and a seer of the game industry. We spoke at our recent GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood & Games event on December 12 in Los Angeles. Ball also wrote a great essay on the trend of how he expects games will follow Hollywood with more international content.
We’ve seen growth of game development in unexpected regions as those regions come online and participate in the global economy. For instance, India game VC firm Lumikai predicts the Indian game market will grow from $3.8 billion in 2024 to $9 billion by 2029. Gaming is already 30% of India’s entertainment market, and it’s on the verge of becoming bigger than Bollywood. With growing revenues will come bigger budgets, more talent and more creativity.
(6) Switch 2 will breathe new life into hardware sales
Last year, I was right that Nintendo would announce that it would unveil the Switch 2 hybrid home/portable game console in 2024 and launch it in 2025. Nintendo updated its forecast saying it plans to launch the system in 2025 and it will be backward compatible with the original Switch, which debuted back in 2017.
This means it will be eight years since Nintendo launched a game console, and that period of time is really pushing the limit in terms of technological obsolescence and gamer patients for new gear. Hopefully, the conditions will be right as well. Assuming there won’t be a China-U.S. tariff war, and that’s a very big if given the statements of incoming President Donald Trump, the conditions should be good for launching a new machine.
The supply chain should be ready to produce such a device in large numbers, and gamers are likely to be more amenable to a Nintendo console, which typically carries a lower price compared to its rivals Sony and Xbox. Nintendo has big games like a new Metroid 4 game in the works, and you can guess that it’s probably got big Mario and Zelda games coming for the console transition too.
(7) Game and TV movies will widen demand for games
Years ago, Hollywood moguls were skeptical that game adaptations would ever suceed. But Dmitri M. Johnson, cofounder of Story Kitchen (an instigator of the Sega movies including holiday hit Sonic the Hedgehog 3) and a speaker at our Hollywood and Games event, noted that we have so many proof points now that great game adaptations can be done.
On top of that, the movies and shows have been increasing game sales. Executives at Microsoft said that the Fallout streaming series on increased sales of Fallout games, even though Bethesda didn’t have a show-related game ready at the same time. Older games saw sales improve. Nintendo said the same about the Super Mario Bros. Movie, which generated $1.3 billion in box office revenues and increased interest in Mario games. And Sony said that The Last of Us streaming show on HBO also had the same effect. This means that execs in Hollywood no longer have to be persuaded that transmedia adaptations can be a great idea, especially if the focus is on what fans want.
Borderlands didn’t take off as expected. But game leaders also no longer need to be completely skeptical that a movie or TV show about their games will ruin the properties. Game developer Richard Dansky (franchise narrative director at Crytek) did a Facebook post on this subject that conveyed the point well. “Narrative works on an emotional level,” he wrote. “It takes time and resources to come to fruition, and skill to do it effectively. Its purpose is to drive four things: attachment, anticipation, identification and investment.”
He added, “Get those four things going and you build an audience that likes your stuff, shares their takes on your stuff with the world, wants more of your stuff, sticks around because they’re looking forward to the next bit of your stuff, and thus continues to spend money on your stuff.”
OK, the word “stuff” isn’t so eloquent here, but this is a great argument on behalf of narrative’s power for persuading bean counters of the value of great stories.
(8) Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft will keep gaining share on traditional games
At its recent Roblox Developer Conference, Roblox executives said more than 400 brands had moved into making games on the platform, which skews toward younger Generation Z and Generation Alpha audiences. Fortnite has also gotten traction with brands, and Minecraft has its own unique appeal too. Magid reported that the youngest audiences are now encountering gaming for the first time on smartphones, not on Nintendo game devices. If you want to reach them, you have to find them in gaming where they are, not on traditional media.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, says there are more than 600 million players who have joined these games with user-generated content at their core, essentially making the metaverse destination that so many of these brands want. Companies that cater to the brands, making games for the brands which work on the platforms, are generating a lot of hits. Gamefam has five of 15 top brand-related games on Roblox, with the No. 1 game Sonic Speedrun getting more than a billion plays. Halo co-creator Alex Seropian’s Look North World launched a game for Twitch on top of Fortnite.
And Disney’s CEO Bob Iger said that Disney was making a universe on top of Fortnite with Epic Games because Disney isn’t reaching the youngest players and audiences anymore because it doesn’t have a huge presence in such games. As Joe Ferencz, CEO of Gamefam, told me in our interview from the story above, the brands that aren’t on these platforms are going to be dying brands.
Speaking of Disney, Iger has reportedly begun the succession process as he plans to retire once again from the top job at the kingdom of Mickey Mouse. Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, was mentioned as a candidate to replace Iger in a Wall Street Journal story. We don’t know if it’s true. But why not? The big media companies have made runs at game companies like EA, Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft in the past. We should expect more of the same to happen.
We don’t know when and where it’s going to happen. There aren’t many healthy entertainment companies that could buy the likes of EA. Tencent is reportedly talking with Ubisoft about taking the French game publisher private. Disney could also bring its Disney Universe project in-house by buying Epic Games.
And Pitchbook said there is a 93% chance that Discord, the game communications company, will go public in 2025. Someone else could stop that from happening by acquiring Discord, but I don’t think that is likely. Eventually, the game companies will become so big that they may be the ones doing the acquiring. This is all speculation, but it’s not so crazy when you think about the chess game of the game industry.
(10) Politics in games will become a bigger trend
Video games have evolved from simple entertainment to complex narratives that can rival the depth of literature and film. As interactive media, they offer unique opportunities to explore and engage with political issues in ways that other forms of storytelling cannot. They can make you feel what it’s like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, like in games like The Last of Us Part II, which depicts a relationship among lesbian lead characters and captures the pointlessness of the cycle of violence.
Or games can generate narratives for more aggressively partisan political games like This War of Mine, Bury Me My Love and Papers, Please. Critics found fault with Detroit: Become Human, but it did a great job exploring how humans will interact with AI beings.
Games play with our emotions and immerse us in believable worlds. Why not immerse us in political realities? Commercial-focused games that simply want to monetize everyone don’t run the risk of injecting politics into games because they’re afraid they might alienate half the player base if they take a side on a political issue. But they also risk becoming irrelevant to the things that concern us. Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs: Legion and Far Cry 5 skated close to the political edge, but they also stopped short.
I am hoping this will change as politics has become more important than ever in our lives.
Anima Interactive, started by a daughter of immigrants Karla Reyes, wants to push the political discussion about the reality of immigration into the mainstream with a game about the journey of migrants, dubbed Take Us North. This is an excellent idea for a video game, even though some may find it shocking to make a game about a journey in which some migrants don’t survive. News flash. Games can tackle difficult subjects and tell narratives in a more sensitive way than you hear on mainstream news shows.
And if we want to educate our younger populations about politics, there’s no better way to reach them than through games. One of my usual favorites is The Political Machine series from Stardock Entertainment, which tries to educate us about how the electoral process works through a political game. Serious Games used to be a big deal, and we should make sure that it becomes a mainstay of our gaming appetite. Games can be a serious medium to tell political stories, and to get facts and the narratives right.
(11) Gaming’s edge will survive but face a long road
Our GamesBeat Next conference surfaced a lot of hot trends at the edge of the game industry, as opposed to the core industry of mobile, PC and console gaming. We all know about efforts to take game technology and expand it into things like blockchain, metaverse and AI. They will succeed if they put gamers and fun first, and find a true utility to make things easier, better and more enjoyable. But there are a lot of other edges to the frontier of games, including user-generated content, movies and film, cloud gaming, subscriptions, and platforms like Roblox and more.
Mobile has by far eclipsed console and PC games, but we aren’t sure which trends at the edge will become explosive in the coming years. That’s the fun about the game industry. It’s always changing, and there are lots of landmines that derail plans for quick growth.
In Europe, we’re seeing the emergence of regulator-sanctioned alternative app stores that will enable developers to avoid big fees from Apple and Google. Subscription game platforms like GeForce Now, Netflix, Xbox Game Pass and Apple Arcade are freeing individual game makers from being slaves to monetization. They also get gamers to try out a lot more games than they ordinarily might play. UGC is making game platforms more viable and turn into huge entities. Ad and reward models are taking off. Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite could be forerunners of the metaverse.
As these technologies mature and become part of mainstream gaming, they could redefine how games are developed, distributed, and experienced. Just as PCs, consoles, and mobile devices have become central to gaming today, these emerging technologies will shape the future, offering new possibilities and transforming the industry in profound ways.
Change is good. We don’t have to reject these ideas before they get their true tests in the market. Sure, there will be failures. But once in a while, something can succeed and take the market by storm. Just look at the Nintendo Wii, with its Wiimote, or the Nintendo Switch, which made hybrid portable and console gaming a thing. I love writing about the intersections of games with tech, science fiction and entertainment. The edge is always more fun. And one day, the edge will become the core.
(12) Alternative app stores will start to get traction
Apple and Google have operated a duopoly on mobile app stores for years. They take a 30% cut of every transaction and that has made game developers like Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney really mad. He sued both companies and brought down the antitrust heat on them. In the U.S., he mostly lost an antitrust trial against Apple but won one against Google. Among the rights he won: the ability to advertise the existence of an alternative app store from within your game on the Google or App stores.
In Europe, the victory was more pronounced as European Union regulators approved the Digital Markets Act to force “gatekeeper” companies to allow developers to create their alternative app stores. On top of that, as HTML5 web games become more capable, it’s easier than ever for some game developers to directly distribute their games via web links. Blockchain game companies are also trying to make an end run around the major platforms through decentralized technologies.
These efforts are gaining momentum and market share, and it’s not unreasonable to expect that one day the whole world will be like China, where Google stayed out of the market and, as a result, tons of app stores sprouted to take its place. The result can be more diversity of content, better discovery and lower fees charged to developers. Matthew Ball, who we mentioned above, wrote in his book, The Metaverse, that the metaverse will never get built so long as platforms can charge game devs 30% fees.
(Ernesto Pagano of BCG and Matt Tubergen of Digital Turbine suggested this as a major trend for 2025).
Grading my predictions for 2024
1) Gaming layoffs will continue
It’s sad but very likely that layoffs will continue in gaming in 2024. The top 20 economies of the world are expected to grow at a range from minus 1.3% (Argentina) to 6.1% (India) while the U.S. is expected to stay out of a recession but produce weak growth of just 1.5%. In this environment, consumers’ pocketbooks will likely be under pressure again. That will likely weaken demand for games.
I can foresee that we still have too many good games coming in a packed calendar for 2024, if the first two months of the year’s release schedule are an indication of what’s to come. Amir Satvat’s estimates are the best we have to go by for now. With 11,000 layoffs in 2023 out of a total population of 300,000 game developers (just 3 percent cut so far), you could still argue that more drastic layoffs are possible. Given the layoffs, it is inspiring that Satvat was able to find jobs for more than 1,000 gaming people via his employment resources.
Given the uncertainties around demand, gamer tastes and the effects of AI on the workforce, I think companies will be in a cautious mode until either really good news materializes, or the companies realize that they don’t have enough people to get their games done. Sean Kauppinen foresees this lasting into the second quarter, when leaders will realize they don’t have enough of a pipeline of games coming. And Satvat himself thinks it may be August 2024 before we see an uptick in hiring. That all makes sense to me, though I can’t say I would be any good at predicting what quarter things will turn around.
Meanwhile, look for the entry-level jobs in gaming to switch more to user-generated content (UGC) for platforms such as Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite.
Letter grade: A. I didn’t want to be right with this prediction, but as noted, the 14,000 layoffs in 2024 exceeded the 11,000 that happened in 2023. We’ll hope for better again.
Sadly, I was right there would be more layoffs in 2024. There were 14,000 layoffs in 2024 in the gaming industry, and
2) AI will surge
It was just a year ago that OpenAI launched ChatGPT-3 and made the benefits of conversational AI and large language models (LLMs) obvious for all of us. Generative AI applications came out enabling ordinary folks to create imaginative concept art, and that took an immediate toll on the jobs for concept artists in gaming. It also enabled more non-artist developers to create their own concept art. And that’s the nature of the creative destruction of AI, taking away opportunities for some and creating new chances for others.
We can expect more adoption of AI to help rein in the budgets of triple-A games — something that Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney sees as a positive change, as no game developer wants to be one of thousands of people working in a content factory. Yet AI could very well be a force that puts more professional game developers out on the street even as it enables more UGC to prosper.
We see early tools enabling neophytes to create videos and 3D animations from a text prompt. We can expect more dynamic conversations from non-player characters thanks to generative AI, based on work being done by Inworld AI. And we can expect to see AI characters become the star of Westworld-style games — rather than human players — as envisioned by companies such as The Simulation by Fable.
With such games, we will discover if it’s still fun to play games when you’re managing a simulation, rather than moving around in the game world as a player.
On the industry level, we can expect that game startups innovating with AI tools will be the ones that get investment from venture capital firms, much like the metaverse and blockchain and VR rode the hype curves in the past. Our own Game Changers list, put together with Lightspeed Venture Partners, highlights the quality startups being funded in the modern VC funding environment.
I do expect that issues like copyright concerns — which prompted the New York Times to sue Microsoft — and labor issues could disrupt the whole AI party. Let’s hope the outcome will be good for games, and good for humanity.
Letter grade: A. Given the powerful changes that AI is bringing to every industry, it wasn’t hard to make the forecast that it would impact games. The fact that EA used AI to help create 11,000 likenesses for college football game characters in three months is a case in point of that impact.
3) Great games will still emerge
Out of the mess of layoffs, economic doldrums, and technological change, we’ll still get amazing games that set a new bar for quality entertainment. Don’t forget that we saw billions of dollars invested into games by game-focused venture funds that didn’t exist before. We saw investors of all kinds come into games a few years ago as a kind of shelter from the pandemic.
That money went to work and it is still being used by game developers to iterate on great ideas and eventually bring some of them to market. Good games take time to make, and great teams continue their work even if the economy turns weak for a couple of years.
Remedy Entertainment weathered 13 years before it brought the outstanding Alan Wake 2 (my favorite game of 2023) to the market. Starfield was in the works for a decade at Bethesda, and by the time Grand Theft Auto VI lands in 2025 it will have been in the works for around 13 years.
Great games find a way to get to the market and gamers discover them. That part of the industry isn’t broken.
Letter grade: A. I was so glad to play titles like Alan Wake 2 in 2023 and see awesome new franchises like Starfield emerge at the same time. This year, I loved titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops VI and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It’s an industry of winners and losers. I expect the winners will win bigger and the losers can lose bigger too. But I never expect a year with only losers.
4) Franchise games will dominate
In the meantime, it will still be tough for brand new intellectual properties to pierce through the noise and become popular with gamers on their own. That’s why big companies from Warner Bros. to Playtika are all focused on franchise games, or those that come from well-known gaming properties like God of War or hit entertainment properties like Spider-Man.
It takes so many game developers to create these games on a regular cycle that there aren’t enough talented teams to spare for untested brand new properties — or so the conventional thinking goes. Since we’re in a downturn, you can bet that leaders of game companies will think in a safe and conservative way to preserve their own jobs, rather than take huge risks on something new.
Even when we get a brand new idea for a game, like Hogwarts Legacy or the upcoming Suicide Squad, you’ll see that its attached to an existing IP like Harry Potter or DC.
Activision Blizzard has a large chunk of its workforce — 3,000 or so people out of perhaps 13,000 — across 10 studios focused on Call of Duty. That’s how it ensures Call of Duty comes out every year as a premium game and it gets steady content for Warzone and Call of Duty: Mobile. That means there aren’t a lot of people left for secondary games like Skylanders or brand new IP.
And this is reflected in what gamers want to play. Players want the franchises, and the game companies are serving it up to them. Sequels and remasters are filling the calendar for next year. I don’t expect too much of this to change in 2024, and you’ll see below that indies are the solution.
Letter grade: C. I foresaw big hits like the new Call of Duty and the Indiana Jones hit. But I didn’t expect to see such a hole in the triple-A launch schedule for companies like Sony in 2024. The failure of games like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Concord left openings for surprise hits like Palworld, Helldivers 2, Black Myth: Wukong, Balatro and more. That meant I was only half right.
5) User-generated content will continue to grow
User-generated content used to signal poor quality. But in the age of AI, automated tools can help take a user’s idea and make something good out of it. That’s why I expect UGC to continue to take off. It already has amazing platforms in Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft.
Dave Baszucki, CEO of Roblox, said at the recent Roblox Developers Conference that he predicts a Roblox developer will be valued at $1 billion in the next five years. There are big Roblox dev studios with 200 people — like Marcus Holmström’s The Gang — with professional game developers. There are also home-grown Roblox studios run by CEOs who are 23 years old and have 10 years of Roblox experience. Some of the games, like Maximillian Games’ Frontlines, feature graphics like triple-A games.
On top of that, Overwolf has enabled modding to scale on the PC, with more than $201 million in payments to modders during 2023 alone.
Letter grade: A. Roblox hit an astounding 89 million daily active users in its most recent quarter, up nearly 27% from a year ago. We’ve also seen great growth for Fortnite, Minecraft and modding on platforms such as Overwolf. It’s a UGC world. Ignore it at your peril.
6) Switch 2 will be announced
Nintendo launched its Switch hybrid console in March 2017, nearly seven years ago. By any measure, it’s due for an update soon, as in the good old days consoles showed their age by their fifth year. Of course, things are different now and consoles may last for 10 years.
But there are plenty of things that Nintendo could add to its capabilities to capture new sales in the market, like getting a Call of Duty game to run on the Switch 2 hardware. Of course, I don’t have inside information here and I don’t even know if Nintendo plans to launch the console during 2024. Nintendo has been pretty good about keeping secrets and figuring out ways to surprise and delight its customers.
But just like Apple, Nintendo needs to start telling developers how to make games for its new platform if it wants those games to show up in a timely manner. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it signals the Switch 2 is coming in 2024 and then ships it after that.
Letter grade: A. In November, Nintendo’s president announced the Switch 2 is coming in 2025 and it would be backward compatible with games for the original Switch. Of course, we don’t know the name of the machine yet.
7) The Apple Vision Pro debuts to good reviews but poor sales
The word is that Apple will start shipping its initial mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, as early as February. You can expect good quality from Apple in terms of an experience that delights users. The Vision Pro will likely be focused on the high end of the market, with target customers including enterprises that might normally buy a Magic Leap 2 headset for training purposes.
There will be some consumer apps, but I wouldn’t expect any miracles in terms of outstanding games at the outset. Like AR and VR, I expect a slow burn in this market in 2024, and then it will turn into something more interesting over time as costs come down and technology advances.
I can’t imagine that many people beyond the core will want to buy the headset at its initial price of $3,500. Apple has priced it that high to see what the market of enthusiasts will bear, but it mainly expects developers to buy those headsets at the outset and deliver great apps and games. Once those start to appear, Apple will hone the manufacturing, lower the costs and start to bring the price down. It will also count on deals with wireless carriers to bring the costs down via subscriptions.
Letter grade: A. This prediction was on the money. The core technology of the Apple Vision Pro wowed those who were big enthusiasts. But the $3,500 sticker price shocked everyone and Apple is reportedly scaling back its ambitious plans on a successor.
8) More consolidation will happen
With the $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard King by Microsoft now approved, we can expect more of the same to happen. Rivals will likely need to bulk up with more game studios in order to stay competitive with Microsoft, which may have more than 20,000 people working in games.
Microsoft will likely push its subscription business even harder, hoping to gain an advantage over rivals like Sony and Nintendo that aren’t trying as hard to push that business model. Game companies will also have other reason to get bigger, like acquiring AI talent or new technologies in the ever-changing industry. I would expect a drive for openness to rise as well in tandem with this consolidation. You can expect to see efforts to create a fully open source game engine, AI tech, or metaverse to emerge as a counter to the walled gardens that the biggest companies and the tech giants can create.
The good thing is that this won’t be just an investment in acquisitions. If the game industry continues to be financially attractive, it will attract funding not only for mergers and acquisitions, it will also draw money for startups. And so the never-ending battle between small game startups and big corporations will continue and that will give a chance for the best ideas to emerge from either type of company.
Letter grade: A. In November 2024, Drake Star Partners reported that game M&A grew for the fourth quarter in a row. We didn’t see another mega-merger like Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but there was still plenty of deals like Playtika’s acquisition of SuperPlay for $700 million at close ($1.95 billion including the full earn-out over time). Other notable acquirers included Tencent (Aojue Digital), Warner Bros. Discovery (Player First), Krafton (Tango Gameworks), Capcom (Minimum Studios), Keywords (Wushu Studios), Nazara (Fusebox, Deltias Gaming) and Infinite Reality (LandVault).
9) Weakness in China
China’s government will likely continue to reign in the gaming business that has otherwise had stellar growth to date.
The government has already restricted the number of hours that young people can play in a week. Last week, China also cracked down on monetization, sending the market value of Tencent, NetEase, Krafton and others downward. The new rules limit spending by players on online games and institute a ban on daily login rewards, first-time purchase bonuses and any incentives game developers create for repeat spenders. Loot boxes are also going to be restrained and games in China must now store their data on servers in side the borders of China.
The drop in the market value is ominous as both Tencent and NetEase have been heavy investors in the games industry, particularly as they expanded beyond Asia into the West. If that source of funding dries up, then game startups around the globe could feel the impact. On the plus side, China says it will take less time for the approval of new games coming to the market.
Letter grade: C. Black Myth: Wukong surprised me and it was one reason why China had a good year. Overall, China’s game revenues were up 7.5% to $44.8 billion in 2024.
10) Hardware companies will get a competitive advantage with user acquisition for games
When Apple cracked down on privacy violations with the deprecation of the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), it hurt the ability for game companies to target advertising for specific users. That sent mobile game sales into a decline and made the business of acquiring users much harder.
But we’ve seen some new kinds of loyalty programs emerge. Consider the playable ads enabled by cloud gaming at Samsung. Samsung is of course a rival to Apple in a variety of ways. But ads were broken on its smartphones, as 90% of people who clicked on a game ad didn’t wind up playing the game due to the friction of having to register and download the game.
So Samsung came up with cloud-enabled playable ads, which, with the Samsung Game Launcher, take you directly into a game to try it out. This will likely be more successful when it comes to friction. And since Samsung sold you the smartphone, it already knows who you are. If you have games in the Samsung store, it knows what you like. And so this will give it a leg up in acquiring new users via its alternative store, which is more viable given the legal victory that Epic Games just score against Google. Of course, Apple could do something like this too, as can other hardware vendors.
Letter grade: C. Samsung launched the launcher and it gave a new alternative for mobile games to reach the market, but I wouldn’t say this set the gaming world on fire.
11) Indies will be the source of original gaming hits
Now that game powerhouses are focused on franchise games and even innovation-minded triple-A firms like Ubisoft can take a long time to launch a new IP (think Skull & Bones), the indies are going to be the saviors of gaming originality.
Every year, I thank the indies for producing games like this year’s Dave the Diver from Mintrocket. Other 2023 indie hits included Sea of Stars, Cocoon, Gorilla Tag, Jusant, The Last Faith, Pizza Tower and Bramble: The Mountain King. Established indie teams that move on to original work after original work can take the risk out of that kind of game and might attract more investment.
For 2024, I look forward to titles like Light No Fire, which was announced by No Man’s Sky studio Hello Games at The Game Awards. I was amazed that this procedural graphics game was created by a team of six over the past five years. We’re not sure when it will ship, but it looks beautiful already.
Letter grade: A. This prediction was so vague that I had to get it right. Among the indie hits this year were great titles like Balatro (Playstack), UFO 50 (Mossmouth), Animal Well (Bigmode), Another Crab’s Treasure (Aggro Crab), I Am Your Beast (Strange Scaffold), Nine Sols (Red Candle Games), Dungeons of Hinterberg (Curve Games) and Thank Goodness You’re Here (Panic). See more here.
12) Transmedia hits will continue
The success of The Last of Us and The Super Mario Bros. Movie will inspire more games to get the Hollywood treatment. There are many such films already in the works like BioShock and Borderlands, but it takes a while for such works to land. We know that Arcane’s second season will be coming to Netflix. Fallout is coming as a streaming TV series, as is the second season of Halo. Tomb Raider is coming. We may expect new seasons for The Last of Us and Twisted Metal. And possibly even hints of a Zelda film. But I’m pretty sure that not every one of these is going to succeed. The ratio of duds and hits will probably start to even out, as gaming fans have no patience for work that is rushed to the market.
Letter grade: A. Again, this wasn’t a hard prediction to make. I was surprised to see the Borderlands movie fail, but we had a lot of hits like Arcane Season 2, Fallout, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and surprise documentaries like The Secret Life of Ibelin on Netflix.
