Platform-style video games, direct-to-consumer distribution drive far-reaching shake-up of worldwide gaming market—Bain & Company annual Gaming Report

LOS ANGELES—August 12, 2025—Traditional AAA sport studios face an intensifying squeeze as nimble impartial builders and platform-style video games quickly achieve market share amid far-reaching disruptions shaking up the worldwide gaming business, analysis launched as we speak by Bain & Company finds. 

The international online game market reached $219 billion final 12 months and is projected to develop by 4% yearly via 2028, Bain tasks. But it notes that the business’s progress is more and more concentrated amongst high titles, a lot of which depend on user-generated content material (UGC), cross-media IP ecosystems, and direct-to-consumer distribution fashions which sidestep conventional storefronts. 

“We’re witnessing a generational shift in what it means to engage with games,” Daniel Hong, chief of Bain’s international Media & Entertainment observe, stated. “Today’s top games aren’t just entertainment—they’re platforms for creativity, socialization, and storytelling. Studios that embrace this broader role will lead the next era of gaming, and those that don’t will be left behind.” 

Games as a platform thrive as AAA studios wrestle 

Platform-style video games—these providing expansive worlds, community-building options, and instruments for creators—are capturing double-digit person progress as they quickly pull gamers, creators, and types into their orbit, Bain’s report notes. Popular video games as a platform are rising lively customers by 10% to twenty% yearly and have gotten the “center of gravity” for the complete ecosystem, it concludes. 

Alongside, conventional AAA studios face rising growth prices, shrinking margins, and steep competitors. In distinction, impartial builders, unburdened by the legacy prices of extra established rivals, are thriving and achieved a 22% compound annual progress charge (CAGR) for PC sport revenues from 2018 via 2024, in comparison with a CAGR of simply 8% for AAA/AA sport studios. 

UGC is mainstream—and rising quick 

Bain’s 2025 survey of greater than 5,000 players throughout six international locations together with the US, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, the UK, and the UAE finds that almost half of creators are spending extra time creating content material in comparison with final 12 months. Even players over 35 years outdated reported a significant improve in time spent creating in-game content material. 

This pattern is most pronounced amongst youthful gamers between two and 17 years outdated, who’re 20 share factors extra prone to play the video games their friends are enjoying. Platform-style titles that help UGC have a strong “flywheel effect”—boosting neighborhood retention and making player-generated content material central to sport longevity. 

“Young gamers are driving the success of top games, and their values are reshaping the industry,” stated Anders Christofferson, chief of Bain’s gaming sector and accomplice inside Bain’s Media & Entertainment observe. “Customization, social connection, and creativity now rank higher than visual fidelity for many players. The old formula of promising sequels and better graphics is no longer enough to stay competitive.” 

Direct-to-consumer distribution is gaining floor 

The steadiness of energy within the gaming market is shifting away from digital storefronts. Twenty-four p.c of gamers uncover new video games via on-line content material creators or influencers, whereas 14% of respondents uncover them via social media, and simply 12% uncover new video games via conventional digital storefronts, Bain’s survey exhibits. 

In response, builders are launching their very own internet shops to retain margin and construct direct buyer relationships. The share of top-grossing cell video games with their very own on-line shops has almost quadrupled inside 5 years from 12% in 2019 to 44% in 2024, Bain stories. These developments are being accelerated by rulings within the US, the EU, and Brazil, which have barred app shops from limiting builders from steering customers to exterior buy hyperlinks, Bain’s report observes. 

Winning past the sport: IP growth fuels engagement 

Top franchises are not confined to consoles. Bain’s report exhibits that round 1 / 4 of players’ time spent consuming different media is targeted on game-related mental property (IP), comparable to exhibits, music, and merchandise. Critically acclaimed movie and tv diversifications increase sport engagement considerably, lifting common concurrent customers (ACUs) by as much as 69% for top-rated sequence, Bain notes. 

Successful franchises are setting the benchmark for the business by orchestrating seamless experiences throughout platforms, leveraging merchandising, and constructing creator communities. Several frequent ideas that set successful IP house owners aside in accordance with Bain embody: