Reports: Epic Games

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MIDiA’s 2025 predictions
It’s social’s stage now

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Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Ben Woods, Rutger Rosenborg, Rhys Elliott and Olivia Jones

December 2024

Apple

Spotify

YouTube

The creator economy reshaped entertainment in the first half of the 2020s and social wasthe big winner, now positioned at the centre of the entertainment economy. In 2025 wewill see the second-order effects begin to play out, set against the backdrop of attentionsaturation, content commodification, and increased focus on profit.

The single-player opportunity
Course correcting from a red to blue ocean

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Rhys Elliott

September 2024

YouTube

Netflix

Xbox

The AAA PC and console games market is facing growth issues, money is more expensive, and developers are facing pressure to become leaner, more profitable, and take fewer risks. Many game makers, including those that found initial success in single player, have been chasing the live-service trend.

Profiling Steam users
A valuable gamer niche

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Karol Severin

April 2023

YouTube

Amazon

Netflix

For two decades now, Steam has been one of the go-to digital game distributors, particularly for computer gamers and developers. Yet, its weekly active audience does not quite reflect a fully representative sample of computer gamers. Rather, Steam’s weekly active users (WAUs) are a specific niche of gamers, characterised by their demographics, genre preferences and wider gamer behaviours.

Music’s Instagram moment
The social music creation revolution

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Tatiana Cirisano

March 2023

Consumer behaviour

Apple

Spotify

Social media has steadily integrated music, and music creation tools have steadily become more social. These trends are converging, accelerated by shifts in consumer behaviour and artificial intelligence (AI). The result could be a new set of music creation and re-creation tools, integrated within social platforms and geared towards casual consumers.

Games’ cultural role in the 2020s

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Karol Severin

September 2022

Epic Games

Cultural trends

Over time, games have carved out their role from the cultural fringes, through tobecoming a firmly established part of digital-consumer culture. Now, they have the opportunity to become theepicentreof digital culture. To do so, gaming needs (and has already started) to evolve from a standalone pastime towards a destination for all other forms of entertainment.

The future of music
The rise of a counterculture industry

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Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

June 2022

Consumer behaviour

Spotify

Music creators

Music streaming and the attention recession have turned music into a background activity. Artists en masse are struggling to cut through the noise, realising that streaming is neither a place to build deeper relationships with fans nor to generate meaningful income.

Music creator survey, Q4 2021
Redefining success

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Tatiana Cirisano

May 2022

Creators

Spotify

artist income

As the barriers to music creation continue to lower, more creators enter the field, yet it is becoming harder than ever to earn a living through music, with a finite amount of revenue being split ever more ways. The majority of professional music creators do not earn meaningful income through their craft and must cobble together income from a diverse mix of sources to make ends meet.

Metaverse
Future scenarios for smart TVs

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Tim Mulligan

May 2022

Amazon

Facebook

smart tvs

Metaverse smart TV opportunities are currently nascent as clarity about the overall growth of the metaverse concept is still emergent. From a smart TV OEM perspective, a focus on future-proofing features to accommodate the likely games and VR heavy functionality of early metaverse commercial scenarios will be key.

NFTs and entertainment
Opportunity assessment

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Karol Severin

January 2022

mobile games

Epic Games

games streaming

NFTs are taking the media and entertainment worlds by storm, but we are still, arguably, in early-adoption stages. The media and supply-side frenzy is kicking in, posing more noise and challenge for companies that wish to soberly assess the opportunities that NFTs can bring.

Games discovery and conversion
Navigating between generations in the 2020s

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Karol Severin

September 2021

Spotify

YouTube

digital natives

The 2020s population is split between digital natives and older digital migrants, which shapes how consumers discover and convert to new games. Younger consumers are more likely to discover via channels and formats pioneered by digital natives, such as creator coverage and social media feeds.

Getting serious about esports
Identifying off-season digital engagement opportunities for sports

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Alistair Taylor

March 2021

Yahoo

esports

Fox

COVID-19 has expedited the need for rights holders and teams to generate digital engagement beyond the pure play live broadcast. Games and esports became big attention economy winners during the early stages of the pandemic and first lockdown. Rights holders desperate to maintain connectivity with fans looked to esports to drive engagement and maintain relevance.

Getting serious about esports
Identifying off-season digital engagement opportunities for sports

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Alistair Taylor

March 2021

Yahoo

esports

Fox

COVID-19 has expedited the need for rights holders and teams to generate digital engagement beyond the pure play live broadcast. Games and esports became big attention economy winners during the early stages of the pandemic and first lockdown. Rights holders desperate to maintain connectivity with fans looked to esports to drive engagement and maintain relevance.

Music and Games Partnership Strategy
Beyond the Comfort Zone

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Karol Severin

January 2021

Apple

Spotify

Spotify

Music companies are flocking to explore partnerships with games companies. Seeking a foothold in a fast-growing market, music companies are often looking for easy wins that fit traditional licensing models that monetise consumption. These however, typically do not align with the games industry’s spend-centric worldview.

Music and Games Partnership Strategy
Beyond the Comfort Zone

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Karol Severin

January 2021

Apple

Spotify

Spotify

Music companies are flocking to explore partnerships with games companies. Seeking a foothold in a fast-growing market, music companies are often looking for easy wins that fit traditional licensing models that monetise consumption. These however, typically do not align with the games industry’s spend-centric worldview.

Virtual Concerts
A New Video Format

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Mark Mulligan

December 2020

YouTube

Amazon

Facebook

The global pandemic thrust the live music sector into chaos, with global revenues falling by 75% in 2020 compared to one year previously. The music industry was rocked by first-order impacts (no concerts, no fan engagement) and second-order impacts (many artists realising that streaming did not add up without live income alongside it).

Cultural Trends in 2021
Navigating a New Normal

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Hanna Kahlert

December 2020

Apple

Apple

Spotify

Behaviours under coronavirus-driven lockdowns accelerated underlying digital consumption trends. Remote working and ongoing restrictions mean streaming behaviour is up across formats and demographics at the same time that some traditional entertainment formats effectively ceased.

Cultural Trends in 2021
Navigating a New Normal

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Hanna Kahlert

December 2020

Apple

Apple

Spotify

Behaviours under coronavirus-driven lockdowns accelerated underlying digital consumption trends. Remote working and ongoing restrictions mean streaming behaviour is up across formats and demographics at the same time that some traditional entertainment formats effectively ceased.

Profiling Esports Viewers
The Synergy of Spend, Ad Receptiveness and Engagement

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Karol Severin

August 2020

Consumer behaviour

Spotify

Spotify

As live events have halted, attracting non-endemic brands to esports via digital content has moved to the forefront for esports companies. But attracting the largest brands often requires close-to-mainstream demographic reach and a similar socioeconomic make-up.

Profiling Esports Viewers
The Synergy of Spend, Ad Receptiveness and Engagement

Cover image for Profiling Esports Viewers

Karol Severin

August 2020

Consumer behaviour

Spotify

Spotify

As live events have halted, attracting non-endemic brands to esports via digital content has moved to the forefront for esports companies. But attracting the largest brands often requires close-to-mainstream demographic reach and a similar socioeconomic make-up.

Sports Consumption
Measuring COVID-19’s Impact

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Alistair Taylor

July 2020

Apple

Discovery

Amazon

With the pandemic-enforced postponement of live sports creating an entertainment void for sports fans, understanding COVID-19’s impact on overall sports consumption and where audiences are substituting their finite attention is paramount for sports distributors and rights holders.

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