Reports: Gaming

Browse all of our reports, featuring our analysts' expert insights and analysis of audience segmentation, emerging trends and technologies, value chains, market shares, predictions and more – backed by our proprietary survey data and bespoke models & forecasts. Become a subscriber to get new ones every month, or just pick one to get started.

Pixels to playlists
Music preferences and behaviours of gamers

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Rhys Elliott

March 2025

Innovation

Labels

US

The global games industry is a $236.9 billion behemoth. It now rivals film, television, and music combined in terms of revenues and is a cultural driver. Yet, for music companies, labels, and platforms, gaming represents more than a parallel market: it is agateway to the world’s most engaged, tech-savvy, and monetisable audience.

MIDiA's gamer segmentation
Prioritise why – not just how – players engage with games

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Rhys Elliott

February 2025

Amazon

Netflix

Gaming

The games landscape is more dynamic and interconnected than ever, demanding a deeper understanding of why players engage with games – not just how. We are proud to introduce MIDiA’s gamer segmentation, which focuses on motivations, attitudes, and underlying reasons behind gaming behaviours.

MIDiA Research global games forecasts 2025–2031
The market is mature, so double-digit growth is a fantasy

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Perry Gresham, Mark Qi and Rhys Elliott

January 2025

US

Global

Gaming

Interested in ' MIDiA Research global games forecasts 2025–2031' ? Access the free version here . Recent years have been tough for the games market. Like many industries, gaming overextended itself following the black swan event that was the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state of music AI
The consumer opportunity lies in modification, not generation

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Tatiana Cirisano and Hanna Kahlert

June 2024

Consumer behaviour

music industry

Music publishing

MIDiA previously predicted that generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) would accelerate music’s “Instagram moment”, where consumers could create and remix music as easily and often as they post photos and videos on social media. However, just because everyone can do these things does not mean everyone will want to.

Gamer brand fandom
Assessing partnership suitability between games and entertainment brands

Karol Severin

March 2022

Gaming

Entertainment

mobile games

Entertainment partnerships in games are booming, with games companies being approached with opportunities from all directions. This increased level of opportunity puts pressure on the available time and resources to properly evaluate each proposal. Simultaneously, the continuous influx of opportunities, coupled with ongoing games release deadlines,...

Games companies’ video opportunity
From marketing to monetisation

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Karol Severin

March 2022

Streaming

Gaming

Games

MIDiAs head games analyst, Karol Severin, discusses a key games video opportunity for games companies and games video creators alike, alongside two panellists - CEO of Wormhole Labs and a Twitch content creator. Find the full webinar here Let us know your thoughts on this groundbreaking opportunity via email: info@midiaresearch.

State of the live streaming nation
Reframing the format post-lockdown

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Tatiana Cirisano

January 2022

Consumer behaviour

live music

Gaming

The loss of touring income during the global pandemic spurred fast growth in a previously niche concert live streaming ecosystem. However, as the world begins to re-open and physical touring resumes, the live streaming industry is encountering a new set of challenges – as well as potential opportunities.

Gamer consumer deep dive Q3 2021

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Karol Severin

December 2021

Gaming

mobile games

Business Strategy

This report presents a deep dive into gamers across five areas: Gamer segments Console owners Services and apps Games behaviours Entertainment behaviours Including more than fifty slides of data and analysis, as well as detailed Excel files, the topics covered include: mobile gamers, console gamers, computer gamers, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Dis...

Gamers & entertainment merchandise

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Karol Severin

August 2021

Gaming

Games

mobile games

As the digital entertainment worlds grow alongside the traditional IRL entertainment world, the next step in the evolution of the entertainment industry will be to bridge the IRL & digital entertainment spheres together, as and where appropriate. One such opportunity is to build bridges between physical and digital merchandise buying.

The esports viewer dossier Q1 2021

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Karol Severin

June 2021

subscribers

Gaming

Games

...

COVID-19 and the Vulnerability of Pure Play Sports Streaming Services

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Alistair Taylor

April 2020

Subscriptions

US

UK

The postponement of annual competitions and major quadrennial events has highlighted just how heavily pay-TV and sport-centric streaming services’ value propositions rely on live sports. Filling schedules with re-runs, docuseries, interviews and archived footage are stopgaps unlikely to increase engagement.

Battle Royale
The Monetisation Sweet Spot

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Karol Severin

January 2020

Facebook

Twitter

Gaming

Niche is the new mainstream. Battle Royale players are one of these niches – far from mainstream in terms of consumer penetration, but impactful and valuable. Across music, video, news, magazines and games, they engage and spend more than average gamers.

US and UK Sports Fans
Reaching Digital Natives

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Alistair Taylor

December 2019

YouTube

Amazon

revenue

Sports as a product is feeling the squeeze of the peak attention economy. Sports fans in the traditional sense are ageing, and appealing to a younger digitally-native audience is a fundamental issue that rights holders can no longer ignore. Sports rights holders have realised the importance of their virtual (gaming) counterparts, acknowledging that...

E-sports
An Alternative Future for Televised Sports?

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Alistair Taylor, Karol Severin, Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan and Zach Fuller

April 2019

YouTube

Amazon

Google

E-sports continue to gain attention, with more brands seeking to enter the space populated as it is by a succession of new leagues, competitions and teams. But for all the hype, e-sports has not yet managed to deliver the scale of audience that the market activity warrants.

Next Steps For Music Video
How Music Videos Miss Much Of The YouTube Opportunity

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Tim Mulligan

January 2016

YouTube

Twitter

music video

The music video has undergone a major transformation since its original conceptualisation in the 1970s and commercialisation in the 1980s. Originally a tool to drive sales, MTV transformed it into a product in its own right and then YouTube did the same thing for the digital era.