Newzoo: Most established live-service and evergreen titles were flat or down year over year in H1 2026

Newzoo's Global Games Market Report reveals that most live-service and evergreen titles experienced flat or declining growth year-over-year in the first half of 2026 compared to 2025. The report highlights that only a handful of games, such as World of Warcraft, Diablo 4, Overwatch, Roblox, and some international releases from Tencent, managed to grow during this period.

PlayStation Plus is anticipated to bolster growth for subscription-based multi-game services. However, digital revenues declined year-over-year in six Western markets due to a combination of free-to-play and annual premium title underperformance. Newzoo predicts a 3% growth in console player numbers this year, an improvement from the nearly flat 0.5% growth observed in 2025. The resurgence is expected to be driven by the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 and the reinvigoration of the first-party titles on Nintendo Switch 2.

Recent Nielsen IQ data indicates that PlayStation 5 and Xbox console sales in the UK surged by 33% and 34% respectively following the GTA 6 premiere on Netflix. Emmanuel Manu Rosier, Newzoo's director of market intelligence, stated that without GTA 6, console revenues would have remained stagnant compared to 2025 figures. The report features the top 10 public games companies for Q1 2026, which together generated $37.4 billion in game revenue, a 6.7% increase.

Tencent led with a 11.9% revenue increase to $10.8 million, while Sony and Microsoft saw a 0.9% and 5.5% decline, respectively. Roblox grew by 39.3% year-on-year to $1.4 million, ranking tenth in this list.

Newzoo forecasts the global games market to reach $213.9 billion in 2026, a 6.1% year-on-year increase. The Asia-Pacific region is expected to generate nearly half of the global revenue, totaling $100.7 billion. China is projected to reach $58.1 billion, while North America, led by the US with $53.5 billion, secures the second position.

The total number of players is forecast to grow to 3.7 billion in 2026, representing a 4.4% year-on-year increase. Of these players, 44.6% are expected to be spenders, up from 39.4% in 2015. Newzoo attributes the expected increase in total average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) to deeper spending within the existing player base.