Product Strategy | MIDiA Research

Fandom

Pixels to playlists
Music preferences and behaviours of gamers

Cover image for Pixels to playlists

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.

The music industry’s weakest link: Getting from A to B

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Tatiana Cirisano

20 Mar 2025

Business Strategy

Key insights from this blog: The music industry is missing a key step when it comes to supporting and growing artists As the landscape of the industry has changed, most notably a loss of a mainstream monoculture, the traditional ways of discovery and promotion no longer work for new and smaller arti...

min read

Live and direct: lessons for streamers from the appeal of online radio

Cover image for Live and direct: lessons for streamers from the appeal of online radio

Laura Fisher

20 Mar 2025

Audience Insight

Key insights from this blog: Online radio has a growing audience, with further opportunity to capitalise on what is missing from music streaming We explore why online radio is gaining popularity – covering the elements of loyalty, dynamism, and humanity – and explain how this connects to MIDiA's...

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Live orchestras and game-specific songs: Death Stranding is a masterclass in harmonising games and music

Cover image for Live orchestras and game-specific songs: Death Stranding is a masterclass in harmonising games and music

Rhys Elliott

13 Mar 2025

Marketing Strategy

Key insights from this blog: There is ample opportunity for the games industry to leverage music to its advantage Key MIDiA data highlights that real-world live concerts using game music AND artists recording original music specifically for games are two underutilised strategies The music industry i...

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Global Recorded Music Revenues Reach $36.2 Billion in 2024 Amid Slower Growth

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Tsion Tadesse

13 Mar 2025

Non-major labels gain share for third consecutive year, as streaming revenue growth decelerates [London — Thursday, 13 March 2025] — Global recorded music revenues rose to $36.2 billion in 2024, marking a 6.

min read

Scenes 2.0 | MIDiA’s updated entertainment playbook

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Tatiana Cirisano

6 Mar 2025

In 2022, MIDiA introduced scenes as a new playbook for music marketing . As entertainment consumption fragments, what was once a singular “mainstream” is being replaced by hundreds of thousands of smaller scenes, or subcultures – like gorpcore, hyperpop fans, or retro gamers.

min read

Mining fandom: Music’s Drive to Survive moment

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Ben Woods

28 Feb 2025

Marketing Strategy

Netflix’s Drive to Survive did more than introduce a new entertainment layer for sports fans. The F1 docuseries provided a framework for re-igniting and nurturing fandom. Before then, sports documentaries would have been considered ‘spin-off’ content.

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How to build a strong fanbase using identity resonance

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Olivia Jones

27 Feb 2025

As entertainment consumption fragments, superstars dominate less, with fans gravitating towards ever-multiplying niches. This trend, alongside the maturation of streaming subscription growth, is driving record labels’ renewed focus on nurturing – and monetising – core bases of superfans.

min read

Music streaming consumer profile Q4 2024
Stabilisation and fandom slowdown

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

February 2025

Willingness to pay

Music consumers

Streaming

Consumer music behaviours are both stabilising and showing signs of coming change. Change that could be challenging for all music business stakeholders, especially with regards to fandom monetisation. This report presents data-focused visuals and impactful analysis of trends and anomalies that will inform your understanding of what is happening to ...

Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Cover image for Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Mark Mulligan

18 Feb 2025

I recently wrote about the unflattening of music :how creativity, craft, and fandom can – if done right – counter the growing commodification of music. Not surprisingly, I focused on the music side of the equation, but in doing so I missed the other big flattening challenge music faces.

min read

The superfans of music superstars
Identity and cut-through

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Olivia Jones

February 2025

Labels

US

Artists

Fandom is becoming the music industry’s golden goose, with labels focusing on building and monetising superfan bases for their top artists. However, superfan behaviours are changing in response to oversaturation and hyper-fragmentation. What once worked for measuring and monetising fandom will not work the same in the future.

The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

Cover image for The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

Rutger Rosenborg

13 Feb 2025

On the heels of positive Q4 2024 financials for Spotify , the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has not lost a step in holding the company accountable for what it sees as unauthorised music usage.

min read

Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

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Olivia Jones

12 Feb 2025

Much of the recent discussion around music superfan monetisation has focused on online superfans, especially as more superstars join fan platforms like Weverse. These monetisation strategies capitalise on fans’ growing desire for artist-fan interaction but often rely on artists’ active participa...

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Bootlegging is the scourge of many industries. Could it be music’s greatest strength?

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Tatiana Cirisano

7 Feb 2025

The word “bootleg” has long left a bad taste in brands’ mouths. Quite literally defined as “illicit goods,” these unauthorised versions or replications of clothes, handbags, concert tees, and other items have long plagued brands.

min read

The games market will grow by 4.6% in 2025 – in line with the global inflation rate

Cover image for The games market will grow by 4.6% in 2025 – in line with the global inflation rate

Rhys Elliott

31 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

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 game...

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Jersey club in Berlin | Behind the scenes and sounds of 2025

Cover image for Jersey club in Berlin | Behind the scenes and sounds of 2025

Kriss Thakrar

29 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for and downloading on Splice can tell us a lot about the sounds of the future.

min read

Switch 2 FAQs: Your cheat sheet for understanding Nintendo's upcoming console

Cover image for Switch 2 FAQs: Your cheat sheet for understanding Nintendo's upcoming console

Rhys Elliott

23 Jan 2025

Product Strategy

As we said in our games trends to watch article , 2025 will be the year of the portable. Nintendo kicked that off in earnest, finally lifting the curtain on its Switch 2 console. Here are the basics: The Switch 2 seems iterative – a bigger, better Switch with some quality-of-life improvements It i...

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Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

Cover image for Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

Olivia Jones

23 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

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 ”.

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Sounds of 2025 | MIDiA and Splice name Pluggnb music’s fastest-growing genre

Cover image for Sounds of 2025 | MIDiA and Splice name Pluggnb music’s fastest-growing genre

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for and downloading on Splice can tell us a lot about the sounds of the future.

min read

New research: What do gamers really think about generative AI in games?

Cover image for New research: What do gamers really think about generative AI in games?

Rhys Elliott

9 Jan 2025

take two interactive

New year, new research! We capped off 2024 by asking a representative sample of gamers [n=6,300] how they feel about developers using generative AI to make games (and how it affects purchasing decisions).

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Showing 21 to 40 of 204 results.