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MIDiA Research 2023-2030 global games industry forecasts
Life post-peak

Cover image for MIDiA Research 2023-2030 global games industry forecasts

Karol Severin and Perry Gresham

October 2023

Business Strategy

This report discusses key drivers, inhibitors, and developments that will affect the games industry throughout the remainder of the decade. It offers investors, rightsholders, and distributors a glimpse into what lies ahead, accompanied by strategic recommendations and a plethora of hard to find, business-critical, modelled metrics.

Cutting loose the long tail in a rising culture of creative consumption

Cover image for Cutting loose the long tail in a rising culture of creative consumption

Hanna Kahlert

27 Oct 2023

Media and Marketing

Recent news of Spotify’s reported plan to introduce two-tier licensing represents a significant departure from the incremental shifts we have seen thus far. With developments like Deezer’s new streaming royalty model with Universal Music Group, to X’s premium subscription, the tension between platforms hosting content from an ever-growing pool of creators, and creator remuneration for that content, is at a breaking point.

min read

Has superstar creator pay peaked now that Twitch has cooled competition with YouTube?

Cover image for Has superstar creator pay peaked now that Twitch has cooled competition with YouTube?

Ben Woods

26 Oct 2023

Twitch’s annual showcase in Las Vegas was the moment new chief executive Dan Clancy put his stamp on the business. What surprised many – and delighted creators – was his decision to significantly cool competition with YouTube and other livestreaming platforms by giving his blessing to simulcasting .

min read

What Netflix needs to do next

Cover image for What Netflix needs to do next

Tim Mulligan

25 Oct 2023

Business Strategy

Netflix’s Q3 2023 numbers were better than expected, with quarterly revenue up by 7.8% year on year to reach $8.5 billion, and operating margin now up to an impressive 22.4%. The company attributed its revenue growth to three areas: firstly, an increase in average paid memberships, which is due to the paid sharing rollout in June (where it prompted password sharers to subscribe to retain access); secondly, a strong content line up and thirdly, a strong global expansion in streaming subscriptions.

min read

There are no elite artists without elite artist development

Cover image for There are no elite artists without elite artist development

Kriss Thakrar

24 Oct 2023

artist development

Creator economy

A recent interview with Mariah the Scientist saw her speak about the struggle of performing for only the second time in front of a crowd at one of the world’s biggest festivals, Rolling Loud. She shared that she “wasn’t good at it”, “did not know what she was doing”, and ultimately suffered from the consequences of all the criticism that followed.

min read

Two-tier licensing is about to become a reality

Cover image for Two-tier licensing is about to become a reality

Mark Mulligan

24 Oct 2023

Streaming Royalties

With the dust still far from settled on the UMG / Deezer streaming royalty proposal, something even bigger is coming: Spotify is turning the concept into reality in Q1 2024. The behind-the-scenes conversations have been ongoing for some time, but the details were stated publicly on panels at last week’s ADE conference, meaning that the information is now firmly in the public domain.

min read

Can subscriptions keep the lights on for social?

Cover image for Can subscriptions keep the lights on for social?

Hanna Kahlert

19 Oct 2023

user-generated content

Digital advertising has long been the financial backbone of the digital world. It has underpinned the business models of the likes of Google and Meta, and its absence has been the value proposition of subscriptions, which now dominate digital entertainment.

min read

How Taylor Swift has ushered in an era of direct distribution for media fusion

Cover image for How Taylor Swift has ushered in an era of direct distribution for media fusion

Tim Mulligan

19 Oct 2023

Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Concert Film

Cinematic releases of music concerts are nothing new, with the likes of the Beatles Help! film of 1965 ushering in a new era of mass participation for global fanbases beyond the concert arena. When Covid shut down the live music scene in 2020-2021, there was a brief flurry of interest in delivering virtual concerts for fans seeking a proxy for the live experience that went on hiatus.

min read

What music could gain from social platform subscriptions

Cover image for What music could gain from social platform subscriptions

Tatiana Cirisano

17 Oct 2023

Last week, Epic Games’ comments about “low margins” in the creator economy prompted a burning question : What happens when consumer creations become more popular than the core content they draw from? Consumers increasingly express their fandom through creation, and we believe this will be one of the music industry’s next growth drivers.

min read

Music has become a ‘just-in-time’ economy

Cover image for Music has become a ‘just-in-time’ economy

Mark Mulligan

16 Oct 2023

The modern day economy is built upon ‘just-in-time’ supply chains. This framework has enabled the benefits of consumerism that we have come to enjoy, such as next day delivery, out of season foods on our shelves, and the digital devices we live our lives through.

min read

Are the ongoing layoffs in games indicative of a wider issue in the games industry?

Cover image for Are the ongoing layoffs in games indicative of a wider issue in the games industry?

Karol Severin

6 Oct 2023

The layoffs wildfire that struck the games industry at the start of 2023 does not seem to be stopping - the most recent being Epic Games last week. Firstly, on a personal level, it has been really sad and upsetting to see all these people being laid off in 2023 – especially when the reasons behind these layoffs are really not through any fault of their own.

min read

Epic blames layoffs on low creator margins — what does that mean for the rest of entertainment?

Cover image for Epic blames layoffs on low creator margins — what does that mean for the rest of entertainment?

Tatiana Cirisano

4 Oct 2023

Content Creators

Increasingly, engaging with entertainment involves some form of creation — be it turning your life into a Wes Anderson film , making songs with Grimes’ vocals , or learning the choreography to your new favourite music video .

min read

Spotify’s audiobooks move is another brick in the audio wall

Cover image for Spotify’s audiobooks move is another brick in the audio wall

Mark Mulligan

4 Oct 2023

Streaming has come a long way since its days as a pure music service for super fans. Spotify’s announcement that it is making 15 monthly audiobook hours available to premium subscribers is simply the latest step in a journey that has seen streaming become the 21stcentury’s take on radio.

min read

Misaligned incentives
The cost of a broken business

Cover image for Misaligned incentives

Tatiana Cirisano

September 2023

Business Strategy

Many of the music industry’s current woes can be traced back to misaligned incentives. Current streaming economics push record labels, streaming services, and artists in conflicting directions: Labels chase viral songs to grow market share, streaming services are motivated to lower the cost of licensing music, and artists must venture outside the system to earn meaningful revenue, among other examples.

Regulatory decisions around AI will shape the future of digital ecosystems

Cover image for Regulatory decisions around AI will shape the future of digital ecosystems

Hanna Kahlert

27 Sep 2023

Looking back, the Francis Haugen testimony spelled a turning point for social platforms. It represents a moment where they, and tech more generally, went from being able to ‘build fast and break things’ with no one really paying attention, to an environment where not only users were watching closely, but regulators were too.

min read

Why investing in IRL entertainment is so important for Disney’s streaming future

Cover image for Why investing in IRL entertainment is so important for Disney’s streaming future

Tim Mulligan

26 Sep 2023

It appears that investors are losing confidence in Disney as the transition from linear TV to streaming TV moves into its final chapter. Last week, Disney saw its stock price fall after announcing that it was doubling its capital expenditures investmentin its parks, experiences, and products segmentto$60 billion.

min read

Streaming’s problems will not be fixed by royalties alone

Cover image for Streaming’s problems will not be fixed by royalties alone

Mark Mulligan

15 Sep 2023

Streaming Music

Music streaming

Streaming Royalties

UMG and Deezer’s artist-centric royalty proposal got the amount of attention both parties probably wanted , if not necessarily the type of attention they were after. However, the intent was to kick start an industry debate, and that objective was clearly achieved.

min read

Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times ahead for the games industry

Cover image for Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times ahead for the games industry

Karol Severin

14 Sep 2023

game developers

Earlier this week, Unity announced that from 2024 it will start charging developers for the number of downloads / installs of their games. Developers unsurprisingly threw their proverbial toys out of the pram following the news.

min read

Niche is the way forward: DSP’s need function, not features

Cover image for Niche is the way forward: DSP’s need function, not features

Hanna Kahlert

14 Sep 2023

It has never been easier to become a music creator. But, it has arguably never been harder to remain one as a full-time career. There are a whole host of reasons behind this, not least of which is a streaming economy that has upended the role of music in the daily lives of audiences, and a host of creator tools (including generative AI) that lower the barriers to music creation, to the point where nearly anyone can step over them with ease.

min read

Cannibalisation is inevitable for YouTube as the attention economy bites

Cover image for Cannibalisation is inevitable for YouTube as the attention economy bites

Ben Woods

13 Sep 2023

When YouTube launched Shorts in 2021, the social video platform was knowingly risking de-stabilising its core business. The rationale behind launching a short-form video offer was that the risk of not doing so could mean haemorrhaging thousands, if not millions, of viewers to TikTok.

min read

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