December 7th, 2022, YouGov
In this piece, we round up the key trends and insights our data revealed in the gaming and esports world for 2022.
We’re two years into the ninth generation of games consoles – a generation that has been affected by a global pandemic, a cost of living crisis, and conversations about “crunch”: the significant amounts of overtime some developers impose on employees ahead of a major release. By some accounts, 2022 was something of a transitional year for the industry: one which saw several major releases in the God of War, Call of Duty, and FIFA franchises, and one that saw tentpole games like Starfield and Hogwarts Legacy delayed into 2023.
It's also a year where we released a range of insights about the gaming industry. On a global level, we explored the most popular games devices across four key markets – finding that laptops ruled the roost in Australia and China, but smartphones dominated in the US and Britain.
Zeroing in on games consoles across the world with YouGov Global Profiles we found that they were most prevalent in Portugal, Hong Kong, France, and Ireland, and less so in Morocco, Egypt, and China. If manufacturers are looking to shift a few more systems – or games on those systems – they might want to check out our piece on the reach of gaming influencers in 17 international markets. Our findings indicate that, for example, gamers in the US are far more likely to have purchase decisions impacted by these personalities than those in Britain.
On a more local level, we asked gamers in Britain and the US whether they were ready to say goodbye to the PS4 and Xbox One generation; we found that – with COVID-19 making it harder to get hands on consoles, and with a cost of living crisis perhaps making it less palatable to buy one at full price – most gamers wanted developers to continue manufacturing games for these systems. Multi-generational games such as God of War Ragnarok have earned rave reviews from developers and sold well in 2022.
We also examined the tendency among developers to order remakes of popular games and – increasingly – film and TV adaptations of those games. In both cases, and in both markets, we found that players were more receptive than not.
And with 2022 seeing the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, we decided to see how many gamers were playing FIFA ahead of the World Cup in Qatar. Our data found that there was an uptick in players across five key markets. But with EA Sports and FIFA going their separate ways, this is likely the last time this will happen.
The above represents just a snapshot of the intelligence we released in 2022 – and we’ll aim to release even more in 2023 and beyond.
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