gaming

The streaming wars will be won with technology, not content

Ben Woods

31 Jan 2023

Video SVOD Gaming

The modern entertainment industry is a tale of re-invention. The need for vast amounts of content to justify the value of a subscription video on-demand (SVOD) service has made the artists, series, and franchises of yesteryear just as valuable to platforms as the next blockbuster hit.

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Songwriters take the stage
A new playbook for a new era

Tatiana Cirisano and Fernanda Balzaretti

31 Jul 2024

Streaming Spotify music industry

The streaming era upended the already-fraught business of being a songwriter, pushing songwriters to secure new revenue streams and better deal terms. While the recorded music industry has responded to similar shifts with a flourishing artist services market, the same is not true for songwriters.

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Cross-platform success
Using social platforms to build audience and fandom

Hanna Kahlert

25 Nov 2025

Creators merchandise Discovery

The shifting social landscape leaves a lot to unpack, with parallel trends of consolidation and fragmentation. Social platforms are now largely about entertainment first and connecting with friends second. Many major platforms reinforce this dynamic by pushing a few-to-many distribution model.

Quick take: The games industry health check

Karol Severin

27 Feb 2024

games forecasts games revenue Games industry

In recent weeks and months, a growing number of people have been asking: “What is going on with the games industry?”, “Is the games industry doomed now?”, “Is it done growing?”, “If neither a new Switch or GTA 6 are getting released this year, is the games industry going to have a weak...

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Gen Z social habits spell trouble for music discovery

Olivia Jones

23 Sep 2025

Fandom Business Strategy Music

Social media is king among Gen Z and may seem to act as a hotbed for viral hits. However, social media’s impact on music streams and fandom is not as strong as it appears. MIDiA’s new report All eyes, no ears | Why virality is not building fandom highlights where social media is lacking when it ...

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The ‘why’ and ‘what’ behind in-game spending

Karol Severin

29 Aug 2024

Audience Insight

As the games industry matures and global games revenue growth slows down, in-game spending will remain one of the industry’s key growth drivers. Historically, in-game spending was mostly associated with advantage-gaining items. In 2024 however, cosmetic in-game items account for the majority of in-game spending and will be increasing their share ...

The age of the premium content creator is here – but will audiences buy into it?

Ben Woods

23 May 2025

Audience Insight Video Creator economy

What makes a content creator popular? At first glance, this question feels easy to answer. Successful creators often have distinctive characteristic that propel their success. MrBeast is known for his stunt video format, Twitch streamer Shroud has impeccable gameplay on first person shooters, and An...

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Bridging the creator gap
Monetising social video’s micro-communities

Samuel Griffin and Ben Woods

3 Apr 2023

Subscriptions YouTube Twitch

The pandemic-induced boom in content creation has saturated social video platforms at a time when creators are battling a downturn in digital advertising revenues. These dual pressures of less exposure and dwindling financial returns have put pressure on mid-tier creators; the community that derives all their creator income from advertising, subscr...

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The state of the video creator economy
Creativity in a streamlined world

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan and Ben Woods

11 Jul 2024

Business Strategy Creator economy

The video creator tools industry is primed for turbo-charged growth as artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates the consumerisation of creation. While the opportunity is significant, a considered approach is needed to ensure AI elevates the creator economy’s success at turning passive consumers into monetisable creators.

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Gamers' time
Where it is and how to get it

Karol Severin

16 Apr 2024

Business Strategy Product Strategy

With the attention economy saturated, there is next to no incremental entertainment time up for grabs. This comes precisely at a time when more games depend on growing time spent. As games are only the fifth most consumed entertainment activity among PC and console gamers, the path for games to meaningfully grow time spent is to absorb consumers’...

Games industry returns to growth, but inflationary pressures will make it worse off still

Karol Severin

7 Nov 2023

games forecasts games market Games

Following over a decade of stellar growth (for an industry that is 50-years-old), the growth pace of the global video games industry has arguably peaked. The grand finale of its growth heyday was artificially fuelled by the Covid bounce in 2020 (26.

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Profiling Steam users
A valuable gamer niche

Karol Severin

6 Apr 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, ge...

What “Make Hollywood Great Again” really means for entertainment

Hanna Kahlert

8 May 2025

Business Strategy Streaming US

On Sunday, May 4th, President Trump announced his intent to put a “100 per cent Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands”. The administration has stated it is “exploring all options” and that no final decisions have been made.

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

Tatiana Cirisano

20 Mar 2025

Business Strategy Fandom Artists

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...

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Billie Eilish delivered a superfan masterclass

Kriss Thakrar

4 Jun 2024

Music Superfans SoundCloud

While the industry standard for new releases has long been about scale and velocity, Billie Eilish, her brother Finneas, and Darkroom/Interscope, the labels behind their latest album Hit Me Hard and Soft , have delivered a masterclass in executing a superfan-focused release strategy.

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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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The ‘proof of work’ premium in the age of AI

Ben Woods

18 Sep 2025

Product Strategy Video Creators

AI is presenting an existential threat to the video creator hardware market . Key to the disruption is the ability of AI video generators to enable creators to bypass cameras within the video creation workflow.

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The new Hollywood
Tactics for YouTube’s TV takeover

Ben Woods

26 Aug 2025

Creators Streaming YouTube

YouTube is consolidating its takeover of the living room TV set. What began in the US is now becoming a global phenomenon. With younger audiences increasingly spending more time watching social video on the TV, broadcasters and streaming TV services must find a way to respond.

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From casual listeners to podcast purists
Mapping podcast platform preferences

Rutger Rosenborg

10 Sep 2024

Audience Insight

Consolidation has arrived in audio. As some tech companies turn to a multi-format strategy to keep users engaged, it becomes more difficult for single-format platforms to compete for the same subscriber base. Companies sticking to the single-format vision of podcasting run the risk of losing even more market share to YouTube and Spotify, but there ...

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Data Explorer

Games Franchise Penetration

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