Players prefer old games despite the abundance of new ones

Large gaming companies release dozens of high-profile new products every year, hoping to attract as many users as possible. However, statistics show that most gamers prefer time-tested projects.

Consulting firm NewZoo has released another report on the industry situation, its preliminary data were shared by PC Gamer journalists. According to the study, the number of gamers continues to grow: if in 2023 the audience was 873.5 million people, then in 2024 it reached 907.5 million. Moreover, among them there were more PC gamers than console owners – 653.1 million against a smaller number of console users.

One of the key findings of the report concerns the preferences of gamers. It turned out that new products are far from a priority: gamers spend 25% of their time in projects released more than two years ago, and 67% of their gaming time is given to titles aged 6 years or more. A significant portion of this time is taken up by popular service games: for example, Counter-Strike holds 7.1% of the total audience, League of Legends – 6.4%, Roblox – 6.2%, Dota 2 – 5.8%, and Fortnite – 5.4%.

The study is based on data from more than 10 thousand video game titles and a survey of 73 thousand gamers. NewZoo’s full report will be presented at the Game Developers Conference 2025.