Blog: Business Strategy - Page 3

We just published our flagship games report MIDiA Research’s Global Games Forecasts 2025–2031 and its accompanying dataset. What you need to know: The games market is mature , so double-digit growth is a fantasy and the industry will only see slight growth going forward The global number of gamers will keep growing , but ARPPU will slightly decrease over time due to growing gamer numbers in emerging markets The oversaturation of live services will see the developer pendulum swing back towards premium games on console and PC The mega-budget strategy will slowdown in favour of shorter budgets – outside of the live-service incumbents and a few select “prestige” studios Multi-game subscription user growth is reaching maturity , though revenues will grow via pricing increases (and perhaps ad-based tiers) in the future The report dives into player forecasts , revenue forecasts for software (full-game advertising, and in-game split by cosmetics and progress-based) , hardware (console and XR), and subscriptions – all up to 2031, with platform and regional splits.

Go big or go home. More is more. All or nothing. Move fast and break things. Such adages have been the foundations of Western entertainment business for decades, and understandably so, because these models have always relied on hits.

The AI race is a tense one. Billions of dollars have been poured into the likes of OpenAI. Meanwhile, the US and UK governments, among others, have pledged to invest heavily in AI development, suggesting that they feel it is of critical importance to “win” the new space race.

Note: Following the publication of this piece, Spotify released a statement regarding Pelly's article, which is reproduced in full at the bottom of this page. In this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine , Liz Pelly published “ The Ghosts in the Machine ”.

Diminishing returns on console generations, cash-strapped consumers, and increasing console prices might just open up a new pricing model for consoles – one in which consoles look increasingly like smartphones.

Most will be familiar with the adage: ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’. Despite being a cliché, the saying lives on as it cuts to the heart of how individuals and companies perceive value.

Since its inception, Spotify has been, and continues to be, the streaming music market’s lightning rod. This is due to its continued ability to maintain leading market share and the fact it is the only leading global DSP that is independent and therefore has to focus place more focus on commercial sustainability than peers owned by global tech superpowers.

The news cycle leaves no room to draw breath as strategic pivots and Supreme Court hearings come thick and fast. Changes are afoot – and they paint a very different picture of the digital landscape of the future.

As 2024 comes to a close, it is worth reflecting on this year’s audio trends and where we expect things to head in 2025. Per our recent report, ‘ MIDiA’s 2025 predictions: It’s social’s stage now ’, social platforms will continue to take centre stage on the heels of the creator economy reshaping entertainment in the first half of the 2020s.

First there were artists, and then there were podcasters. Now, there are artists, creators, and authors on Spotify. As we covered at the end of November, Spotify has officially renamed its Spotify for Podcasters hub to Spotify for Creators as the company looks to unlock the power of video in podcasting .

It has been a rollercoaster of a news year for TikTok since April, when President Biden signed a law that would ban the platform unless it found new owners. The January 19th deadline is approaching quickly, and the heat is up as of December 6th, when the Federal Appeals court upheld the ban.

As audio platforms continue to expand into industries beyond audio, new fronts in the platform wars are emerging. With Spotify now competing with YouTube for video, podcast, and music supremacy, the company’s foray into audiobooks has placed it in direct competition with Audible and, by extension, Amazon.

Australia has just approved groundbreaking social media regulation that bans users under 16 from accessing platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, and X. This under-16 social media ban is the first of its kind that does not allow exceptions for existing users or those with parental permission.

One of my favourite parts of the MIDiA year is creating the MIDiA predictions report and webinar. It is always a true team effort, with our team of analysts spending weeks brainstorming ideas, proposing predictions, stress testing those to within an inch of their lives, and then writing the report.

TikTok’s future hangs in the balance, with its January deadline to find a new owner fast approaching beneath the oversight of a new, and unpredictable, US administration. President Trump originally tried to ban the app himself in 2020 by executive order, which failed.

Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa recently confirmed that Sony sent it a letter of intent to acquire Kadokawa (increasing its current 2% stake). Kadokawa owns FromSoftware, the developer of Elden Ring , a 25-million-selling game that became a huge cultural moment in 2022.

As Clayton Christensen identified in The Innovator’s Dilemma, there are two types of innovation: sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. Sustaining innovation is what companies do to enhance existing business models, while disruptive innovation is typically driven by new entrants – insurgents looking to make markets by turning established ones upside down.

As one of the key players in podcast industry trends and podcast monetisation, what happens at Acast matters. The company’s financials provide insight into the global podcasting market, signalling to the broader industry the strength of podcast advertising.