🔑 Key Takeaways from Gamescom 2024
🔑 Key Takeaways from Gamescom 2024
9 takeaways and some random stuff from Gamescom
Hey Gamemakers,
Gamescom was last week, and it was wild!
My first trip to Germany. This week, I cover the Top Takeaways from the conference.
In this newsletter:
Top Downloads: ROBLOX has become the new #1 worldwide downloads leader. I have to admit, though, I played the shit out of the #2 worldwide downloads leader: “Offline Games No Wifi,” especially on the plane to Germany for Gamescom.
Top Revenue: The 1-2 punch of Honor of Kings at #1 and Dungeon & Fighter: Origin at #2 continues dominating worldwide revenue charts.
Top Steam Revenue: Who would’ve known that Black Myth Wukong would do this well? Ahem… I’ve been talking about this game for years, but whatever. I welcome all the bandwagon jumpers who have jumped on after looking at revenue and concurrent player data in the rearview mirror. Lol.
Highlight—Key Takeaways from Gamescom: It was a crazy week in Germany for Gamescom. Read below about the secret games industry info I heard at the conference, lol.
Top 10 Mobile Charts (Worldwide, US, and China)
Roblox is the new #1 worldwide leader in downloads.
I really don’t get Vita Mahjong at #6 in the USA.
At #1 China, 心动小镇 (aka Heartwarming Town) is a town building and management simulation game.
I predict Monopoly Go will drop out of the Top Ten Worldwide by the end of the year.
Last War Survival and Whiteout Survival are much closer in their grudge match for revenue.
Top 10 Steam Charts
There's not much to say that 1 billion other people haven’t already said about Black Myth Wukong.
Over 10M copies sold across all platforms, 8M sold on Steam within the first 48 hours.
2.4M concurrent players on Steam.
🔑 Key Takeaways from Gamescom 2024
It was the morning of our big event for Gamescom, and I woke up with a massive headache and felt terrible. Uh-oh.
I helped organize and was co-hosting a gaming event with CleverTap and AWS: the Product x LiveOps Symposium.
Some of the biggest venture capitalists in the games industry were on a panel I was supposed to moderate, and I felt terrible.
8AM… 9AM… 10AM… 1PM… well better get out of bed and get rolling.
Fortunately, I survived, and although I felt terrible, we had another great event with a keynote from Ian Proulx, CEO of 1047 Games, the makers of Splitgate, and all of the famous venture guys you see below:
Throughout the week, I met with investors, fellow entrepreneurs, gaming executives, publishers, and others.
Here’s what I heard:
Mobile Studio Spend Falls: Many folks, especially vendors, mentioned that spending from mobile game studios had basically “fallen off a cliff.” Some vendors were just trying to survive until next year or had already pivoted to focus more on PC/console studios for budget.
More Layoffs: I won’t mention the company names, but unannounced and internally announced layoffs are coming through the end of this year. Hopefully, we will bottom next year, but 2024 is not done yet, and more pain is coming.
M&A Ramping: There are likely two billion+ deals imminent. Further, a wave of M&A is likely coming in ‘25 and ‘26 as many game studios that carried debt or raised but will miss their next round of venture funding will be up for sale. One venture firm hired a partner specifically to aid portfolio companies with M&A.
Shift to Europe: While there’s already been a shift to Asia for venture funding, several Asian publishers I spoke to have all seemed to be shifting investment and M&A away from North America and towards Europe. Part of the motivation is cost, and studios are deemed to have good console expertise in the region.
Mobile Payback Expansion: A few folks have mentioned that the UA environment continues to be challenged, with a recent pattern of having to extend payback periods from about 6 months to 9-12 months.
Pipelines at Risk: Several bigger game studios and publishers had mentioned scaling back new game development pipelines but now are facing a problem: They may need to scramble to fill their pipelines for the coming years. If you’re a game studio with upcoming high-potential new games, you will become very popular soon.
AI Disillusionment: While we had wild enthusiasm for AI and its potential as early as a few months ago, we’ve reached the “trough of disillusionment” phase. While a few folks are still bullish on AI, more than a few are now openly dismissive of AI and its potential impact on game development. More than a few were suggesting AI has basically plateaued or is merely hype.
Equity & Inclusion: On a few occasions, it became clear to me that the push for equity and inclusion in games is still active, especially in the bigger companies. While I think this is positive (at least the inclusion part), there seemed to be a lot of backlash and a changing tide in the US around these issues, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Industry Presence: Notably Sony and Nintendo did not participate in Gamescom this year and Supercell had what amounted to a booth that could fit like 3 people. Some wonder whether the days are numbered for these kinds of conferences with the closure of E3 and bigger companies doing their own digital events (Nintendo Direct, PlayStation Showcase, and Xbox Games Showcase). Note Xbox did have a big presence at Gamescom.
Besides that, I gotta say the exhibit itself was fantastic.
Check out 1047’s booth for Splitgate 2:
The most impressive trailer was Nexon’s The First Berserker: Khazan.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it was great to be able to play upcoming shooters:
I play Delta Force from TiMi Studios/Tencent and Splitgate2 from 1047.