PC gaming has never been more popular... but the same can't be said for the new generation of games, which seems to be struggling to retain its audience.
That's what emerges from the latest annual study by Newzoo, a market analysis and consulting firm focused on the video game industry. The first notable conclusion of this 2025 edition, relayed by PC Gamer, is that the PC market continues to grow at a stable rate. By 2024, approximately 30 million additional players had adopted this platform, for a total of 907.5 million PC players worldwide. This is considerably more than console players, which apparently have 653.1 million players across all platforms according to Newzoo.
Recent games are no longer popular
But the most interesting information is a little further down. The big surprise isn't really the number of players, but rather the nature of the titles they play. Also according to the firm, 67% of hours played on PC were on relatively old games, released six years ago or more.
Among these games, we find several great classics that have managed to establish themselves over the long term thanks to a formidably effective formula. In first place, we find the king of FPS games himself: Counter Strike: Global Offensive and its successor Counter Strike 2 released last year. Together, the two versions accounted for 7.1% of total hours played on PC in 2024. Just below this, we find the essential League of Legends (6.4%), Roblox (6.2%), the immortal Dota 2 (5.8%), and Fortnite (5.4%).
More broadly, 25% of this total number of hours was spent on games between 2 and 5 years old. This means that the most recent titles, less than two years old, represented only 8% of hours played!
We also observe the same trend on consoles—although it is less marked. Older games still represented 44% of hours played on PlayStation, and 49% on Xbox. On both machines, recent games only represented 15% of hours played.
A drop in quality…
It is obvious that older titles will inevitably retain a higher market share, since there are simply many more of them. The extent of the gap, however, is decidedly surprising.
Should this be seen as a sign that the overall quality of video games tends to decline over the years? This is indeed the most obvious and intuitive explanation. You yourself undoubtedly have many examples of recent games that support this interpretation. Between the old franchises kept on life support with very little innovation (Call of Duty and company), the simply bland titles without the slightest risk-taking, and those undermined by disgusting business practices or released in an absolutely intolerable state, it is clear that the AAA ecosystem is not at the top of its game at the moment.
Newzoo's figures also support this idea, at least in part. This dynamic indeed seems to be strengthening year after year: in 2023, games older than 6 years represented "only" 60% of hours played.
...or a different cultural and economic context?
But this is probably a rather superficial and unnuanced reading of the situation. Many other factors probably play an important role in this dynamic. One example is market saturation: more and more games are released each year, and players could therefore turn to safe bets rather than spending time looking for the rare gem.
Economic factors should not be underestimated either. With the average purchasing power of the population tending to decline, it would not be surprising if many players preferred to stick to classics instead of treating themselves to new releases. It's a safe bet that the rising cost of the components needed to play these recent titles, starting with Nvidia's expensive graphics cards, is also weighing in the balance.
An industry in full transformation
In any case, it's certainly not the players who will suffer from this situation. Developers and publishers, on the other hand, will have to take careful note of this trend: it's a fact, it's increasingly difficult to deliver a game that can wow the crowds for years to come.
We can therefore legitimately wonder if we will one day witness the release of a new generational bomb on the caliber of Counter Strike, Minecraft or Fortnite. Is the era of video game mega-hits definitively over? It's difficult to say at this stage. It's not impossible that the future belongs entirely to niche games and the indie scene—but that's just speculation for now.
What is certain, however, is that the industry is in the midst of a major transformation, and it's difficult to draw a clear conclusion due to a lack of perspective. So, we'll see you in a few years for another assessment of this trend.
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