Lifetime of game products in the world increased by 33%

Unity has released its annual report on the state of the game industry.

The report provides key trends and insights into indie developers and larger studios using the tool and game production tools. Note Unity has collected data for the 2023 game report from more than 230,000 developers using its real-time development platform. More information has been collected on the advertising data of more than 423,000 developers across multiple platforms. An additional survey of 356 game developers was also conducted with a margin of error of +/- 5.2%.

It is worth mentioning that the lifespan of game products has increased by 33%, which means that games last longer before shutting down. Indie developers are shipping games faster. The production cycle has been significantly reduced. According to the report, 62% of indie teams (1-9 people) and 58% of mid-tier studios (10-49 people) are currently creating games in less than a year, from start to release date. It’s also worth noting that employees at independent, mid-sized and lower-middle companies are working 1.2% fewer hours. Unity notes that this “could span around five years of total man-hours, making shipping a new title more achievable for many studios”.

For 46% of indie developers, the prototyping phase lasted less than a month. This is partly because 62% of independent teams use between 5 and 14 third-party content packs for prototyping and brainstorming. According to Unity, developers using pre-made content from the Unity Asset Store shop for games 20% faster, 69% of studios using DevOps tools for faster release, improved quality, enhanced security and infrastructure expansion.

Games by region.

In 2022, Kazakhstan saw the largest increase in the number of new indie games with 115.7%. This is followed by Romania (85.1%), Poland (82.1%), India (68.9%), and Ukraine (66.9%). When it comes to mid-tier studios, the biggest spike occurred in Turkey 260%, followed by Norway (200%) and France (196%). Action is the most popular genre among indie groups, followed by Adventure and Puzzle. Small developers also tend to make more Platform and Video games titles. Larger studios (50+ people) make more MMO and racing games, as well as shooting and role-playing games.

Last year, major studios released 16% more cross-platform games than in 2021 and 110% more than in 2019, 88% of studios with more than 50 employees are currently producing cross-platform games. Companies that choose consoles as their first platform are also more likely to bring games to PC and VR. But overall, PC remains the top choice for all developers, with 76% of studios cross-platform.