The top 10 games on each platform now capture approximately 50% to 60% of total revenue for active titles, according to Bain's 2025 Gaming Report — a level of concentration that the consultancy says has reached new heights and raises the bar for any studio trying to break a new IP into the market.

The broader context: the video game market grew 5% last year to around $219 billion in revenue, excluding hardware, advertising and esports, per Bain analysis. The firm forecasts roughly 4% annual growth through 2028, a normalization after the pandemic boom.

Bain's fourth annual gaming survey covered more than 5,000 people across six countries — the US, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, the UK and the UAE — and points to a structural shift in what players value. The headline conclusion: great gameplay is no longer enough.

Why are young players hardening the market's winners?

Gamers aged 2 to 17 are 20 percentage points more likely than players aged 35 and older to prefer the short list of games most popular among their peers, the survey found. Video games are the most popular form of media for under-18s and take a higher share of their total media consumption than any other age group.

Their habits appear durable. The share of Roblox users aged 13 and older rose from about 50% in 2021 to around 60% in 2024, as a significant portion of younger users stuck with the game as they aged. If those habits persist, Bain argues, new games will find it harder than ever to break through.

What do platform-style players actually value?

The traditional AAA model — sequels with better graphics, more content and gameplay tweaks — has long worked for franchises like Call of Duty, EA Sports FC and Madden. But Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft are upending those dynamics.

Among players who prefer these "games as a platform," the ability to modify and personalize the experience, and the fact that their friends play it, ranked as highly as the gameplay itself. Graphics ranked a distant second.

That mismatch has a budget consequence. Many publishers continue to pour significant funds into higher-fidelity graphics that no longer move the needle for many gamers, contributing to budgets ballooning to hundreds of millions of dollars for the most expensive titles even as consumer spending stays flat. Bain's prescription for AAA developers: understand niches, run early playtests, and align budgets with actual demand.

How big is user-generated content now?

At scale, community creation can rival AAA budgets. In 2024, Roblox paid nearly $1 billion to its player creators, while Fortnite paid out more than $350 million. In Bain's 2024 survey, about 80% of gamers said they had played a game featuring player-made levels, modes or items. This year, almost half of content creators reported spending more time creating than last year — a net increase even among those 35 and older.

The structural advantage is resource allocation: AAA studios carry large budgets, training and strict timelines, while platform developers reinvest in tools and R&D — Epic Games advancing Unreal Engine being Bain's example — and let users, indie developers and brand partners supply content.

Some incumbents are responding. Nintendo has embraced course-sharing in its Super Mario Maker series, and Sony's Dreams showcased console-native UGC pipelines. Bain's warning is blunt: UGC cannot be an afterthought or a gimmick; developers must decide early in the development cycle whether it is core to the mechanics and the business model.

Can advertising and new pricing fix flat spending?

Game sticker prices have held at $60 to $70 for two decades while budgets soared; today's $70 release costs gamers roughly 30% to 40% less in real terms than a mid-1990s cartridge. Subscriptions have yet to prove they can carry large titles.

Player attitudes toward ads are paradoxical. In the 2025 survey, 64% of players said ads interrupt their gaming experience, up 5 percentage points year over year — yet 46% say they often make in-game purchases triggered by those ads, a 6-point increase.

Non-mobile platforms are pushing ahead regardless. Roblox moved from bespoke brand activations to a full programmatic video-ad marketplace in 2024, partnering with PubMatic to give advertisers self-serve access to its more than 97 million daily users. A Google partnership announced this year added rewarded-video formats exchanging 30-second ads for in-game benefits. Brands from iHeartMedia to 7-Eleven are building playable experiences inside platform-style games.

Bain frames the executive takeaway simply: today's users don't just want to play, they want a hand in shaping the experience, and the companies that empower user creativity and evolve monetization will lead the next era. The market signal to watch: whether the next Grand Theft Auto releases at a higher sticker price — an outcome many industry executives, per Bain, are awaiting as a test of the industry's pricing ceiling.