The Big Data company newzoo sees itself as a market leader in data about gamer and gaming statistics. Now the company has presented its figures for the gaming market in 2022, and an interesting statistic shows: Among the top 10 service games, there are almost only old games.
2022 is coming to an end, and year-in-reviews can be found everywhere – on TV, gaming websites, YouTube – and of course, the appropriate statistics must not be missing.
In the gaming sector, “newzoo” is considered a reliable source of data about the market. The company recently published its final forecasts for the year 2022 and uncovered some exciting things.
Included was a list of the top 10 games by MAUs – Monthly Active Users. This value is particularly interesting for service games that want to be on the market for longer or for years.
– A player who plays a game every single day in February, but not for the rest of the year, is therefore counted as “1 MAU”
– A player who logs into a game only once a month is counted as “12 MAU”.
This statistic measures more the number of “loyal players” rather than “extremely active core players.”
The list shows the value of MAUs in November 2022 and reveals: Only Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 / Warzone 2 is represented as a new game in the top 10. Otherwise, only old titles are included, some of which have been running for over 10 years:
Top 10: Games by MAUs / November 2022
- Fortnite – 2017
- Minecraft – 2011
- GTA Online – 2013
- CoD MW2 / Warzone 2 – 2022
- CoD MW / Warzone – 2019
- ROBLOX – 2006
- Apex Legends – 2019
- Rocket League – 2015
- Fall Guys – 2020
- FIFA 22 – 2021
The statistic once again proves how important established brands are in gaming.
If service games start with a small or big hype and can establish themselves, stable and even increasing revenues over the years are possible. Multiplayer phenomena like Fortnite, Minecraft, or GTA Online show this month after month.
And even sequels can build on the success of a service game if the right environment is created. Call of Duty manages to do this almost every year – however, FIFA 23 didn’t quite surpass its predecessor this year.
Overall, the global gaming market shrank by about 4% in revenue in 2022. After the strong pandemic years, the high inflation rates in 2022, and an economic downturn, this is not unusual.
The last few years have been extremely strong for gaming, despite numerous delays and a currently shrinking market. Many players have returned or have first engaged with gaming during lockdown.
Especially in the multiplayer sector, there were incredibly many release delays in 2022, which we can look forward to in 2023: The 10 most exciting multiplayer games that were supposed to be released in 2022 but were delayed
