game

Cover image for Pixels to playlists

Pixels to playlists
Music preferences and behaviours of gamers

Rhys Elliott

28 Mar 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.

Cover image for Beyond the screen

Beyond the screen
How and why gaming merch and collectibles fuel fandom

Brandon Sutton

3 Sep 2025

Marketing Digital Fandom

The physical gaming merchandise and collectibles market is a multibillion-dollar industry that serves as both organic marketing and a way to strengthen community engagement. However, the space has grown increasingly complex due to a surge in fan-made merch, a crowded field of game properties, and economic pressures like the rising cost of living.

MIDiA’s analysts answer questions on their 2025 predictions

Karol Severin

5 Feb 2025

Business Strategy Music Games

We are delighted by the overwhelmingly positive response and discussions sparked during our 2025 predictions webinar. We are grateful for all the engaging questions you asked during the session. Though we were unable to get through all of the excellent questions in the one-hour window, we certainly ...

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Cover image for Markiplier’s podcast breakthrough sets a new precedent for games creators

Markiplier’s podcast breakthrough sets a new precedent for games creators

Annie Langston and Kazia Rothwell

3 Apr 2023

Spotify Games Markiplier

Over the past decade, YouTube, Twitch, and other social platforms have become hotbeds for games creators. They have transformed the culture around games by creating a new level of community and connection among gamers, streamers, and the games themselves.

What would happen if Sony bought Kadokawa?

Rhys Elliott

22 Nov 2024

Sony PlayStation kadokawa

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.

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Cover image for From video hardware to entertainment hardware

From video hardware to entertainment hardware
The gamer opportunity for smart TVs

Tim Mulligan

8 Nov 2022

smart tvs SVOD d2c

Smart-TV-owning gamers skew older and combine increased consumption spend with an increased willingness to pay for content and entertainment more broadly. Smart-TV owners over-index for games consumption and in-game spending,offering an unparalleled platform distribution opportunity for cross-platform gamesdistributors such as Xbox Game Pass.

Cover image for UK media consumption Q4 2024

UK media consumption Q4 2024
A mature market with niche growth prospects

Laura Fisher

23 Apr 2025

Streaming Streaming Music US

This report presents MIDiA consumer entertainment data across media, music, audio, and games. Key data and insights: Time spent and weekly active users (by format and platform)for streaming music, podcasts, social media, games consoles and more. All data refers to the UK only (n = 1,000) except for ‘all-country average’ referring to the weighte...

Cover image for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Samsung smart-TV partnership

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Samsung smart-TV partnership

Tim Mulligan

11 Nov 2022

Video Samsung Microsoft

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Samsung smart-TV partnership On June 30th 2022, Xbox announced that it was bringing the Xbox app to Samsung 2022 smart TVs. Hundreds of games from the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate library, and Fortnite were to become available for the new Samsung smart-TV owners without the need for a subscription.

MIDiA Research study rejects $100 price point for Grand Theft Auto VI

Tsion Tadesse

9 Oct 2025

Subscriptions Video Music

[London, 9th October, 2025] -As anticipation for the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto VI reaches fever pitch, speculation surrounding its price has intensified. Since the game’s announcement, rumoured base edition prices of up to $100 have ignited industry-wide debate about the future of A...

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Are mobile game advertisements a legitimate trojan horse for podcast downloads?

Annie Langston

12 Oct 2022

podcast downloads game ads real podcast listener

Podcast marketing is still somewhat new terrain in the digital audio market. Not only are podcasts a niche activity, but the market is fragmenting with the development of more shows. This oversaturation is making it harder for any individual show to grow its audience.

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Twitch and YouTube are poised for disruption in the video game advertising explosion

Ben Woods

1 Nov 2022

Twitch advertising ad revenue

Two years ago, the broad negative sentiment toward in-game advertisements stood steadfast as the gaming industry devised the ground rules for realising its multi-billion-dollar advertising opportunity.

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Meta and games
The race between user interface and content

Karol Severin

29 Sep 2022

Games Cultural trends

Meta and games |The race between user interface and content Meta, formerly Facebook, has a good track record of knowing when to disrupt itself just in time to play a major role in the next generation of consumption – it successfullydisrupted itself from a desktop into a mobile-first company.

The industry’s narrative is not always the same as the artist's narrative: Redefining success for independent artists

Keith Jopling

6 Mar 2023

Streaming Creator economy Marketing

Last weekend, there was a fascinating quote from Maseo of hip hop legends De La Soul in the UK Guardian: “On our second album, we learned the importance of controlling the narrative. I learned early on that a hit record can hurt your entire body of work if you let the industry control your narrati...

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Cover image for Scenes are the new markets

Scenes are the new markets
Why and how entertainment should go niche

Tatiana Cirisano

6 Mar 2025

Marketing monetisation Entertainment

In 2022, MIDiA introduced scenes as a new lens for marketing music. This report expands on the concept, reintroducing scenes – groups of people whose shared interests, aesthetics, values, behaviours, and vernacular have coalesced into a shared lifestyle – as a wider business strategy reset for all of entertainment.

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Gamers
A cross-entertainment summary

Karol Severin

18 Jun 2024

Business Strategy

This report presents the key figures, behaviors, and preferences of gamers across entertainment. Graphics in this report show selected gamer segments, compared to relevant consumer segments across entertainment as appropriate. An accompanying Excel file provides country-by-country figures and data for 60+ additional gamer segments, including by gam...

Horizon's price changes show why consoles are pushing for no discs

Rhys Elliott

10 Oct 2024

PlayStation playstation 5 PC

PlayStation recently launched a remaster of 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn forPS5 and PC. As part of a specialpromotion from Sony, anyone who already owns the original Horizon Zero Dawn can paya $10 upgrade fee to access the remaster.

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Concord has been taken offline: What went wrong?

Rhys Elliott

5 Sep 2024

PlayStation Studios Concord PlayStation

PlayStation is taking its PVP hero shooter Concord off the market after just two weeks. The game’s Steam numbers point to incredibly low sales. ‘’At this time, we have decided to take the game offline beginning September 6, 2024,’’ said Firewalk Studios’ game director, Ryan Ellis .

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Cover image for India market focus

India market focus
A fandom and AI-forward online population

Hanna Kahlert

12 Jun 2025

YouTube Facebook Fandom

Online Indian consumers are expected to be early movers. They are high entertainment consumers, AI enthusiasts, and high spenders – especially on fandom. This report explores a population that is an early adopter, format-agnostic, mobile-first audience, with huge growth potential.

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Fortnite
A cross-entertainment oasis?

Karol Severin

18 Jun 2024

Free Report

When it comes to games that leverage music, TV, film, and many of the other topics covered in Gamers: a cross-entertainment summary report, Fortnite is the de-facto example. While Epic Games’ Fortnite: Save the World began as a modest cooperative shooter in 2017, the spin-off battle royale mode (100-player last-person standing) plummeted Fortnite...

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

Rhys Elliott

23 Jan 2025

Product Strategy Games Fandom

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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