Newzoo projects the global games market will expand by 7.5% to reach $197 billion in 2025, surpassing earlier forecasts.
This growth, based on an early assessment of the industry’s performance from January to November, is largely attributed to better-than-anticipated results in the PC and mobile gaming sectors.
PC gaming revenue is anticipated to climb 10.4% year-over-year, reaching $43 billion, fueled by a robust lineup of premium titles that exceeded the performance of previous year’s releases.
Mobile gaming is projected to generate $108 billion, a 7.7% year-over-year increase, marking its second consecutive year of expansion, driven by both new releases and enduring popular games.
Previously, in September, Newzoo had predicted the global games market would reach $188.8 billion, with factors like the Nintendo Switch 2 launch, increased software prices, and significant console releases contributing to that estimate.
However, the latest forecast indicates that console gaming will see the smallest year-over-year revenue growth at 4.2%, totaling $45 billion.
Newzoo also analyzed the top-performing games of 2025, considering both revenue and player engagement.
On PC, Battlefield 6 secured the top spot for revenue, with Schedule 1 and Arc Raiders following. All games in the top ten were premium titles, and the shooter genre continued to dominate.
For consoles (combining data from PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch), EA Sports FC 26 and NBA 2K26 were the leading titles, with Battlefield 6 ranking third.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows was the first non-sports game to appear in the top ten at number six, followed by Ghost of Yōtei at number eight, and then Pokémon Legends: Z-A and Borderlands 4.
Electronic Arts notably had four titles within the top ten, a result of its effective premium release strategy and consistent launch schedule for console sports games.
The inclusion of Pokémon Legends: Z-A in the rankings highlighted the continued importance of platform exclusivity for revenue, even though it launched exclusively on Switch consoles (with approximately half its sales attributed to Switch 2, according to Newzoo).
Newzoo also focused on Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a game that continues to influence the industry after its significant wins at The Game Awards.
The game’s monthly active user (MAU) distribution showed 43% on Xbox, 42% on PlayStation, and 15% on PC.
Launched in April, Clair Obscur was a Day One release for Xbox Game Pass and has since emerged as the platform’s leading third-party release of 2025.
According to Newzoo’s Game Performance Monitor, this turn-based RPG has accumulated a lifetime MAU of 5.13 million players and a monthly MAU of 643,000 on consoles.
Newzoo observed that the game consistently rose in engagement rankings months after its release, demonstrating how player resonance, word-of-mouth, and discoverability can foster sustained growth even without initial massive scale.
Regarding overall MAU, only one 2025 title, Landfall Games and Aggro Crab’s Peak, made it into the top ten for engagement across all platforms. This was largely due to a free-to-play extension that considerably broadened its reach after launch.
