'More than 2.5 billion messages are sent each day on Roblox'

"In 2021, approximately 2.5 billion chat messages were sent and 17 million friendships were made on Roblox daily.*

*Measured on active users on a representative, randomly selected day (12/20/21)"

Source - Blog post from Roblox, December 2021

Note - there is an inaccurate claim that more than 60 billion messages are sent each day on Roblox, made on a Bloomberg podcast - this claim is demonstrably false.

'More than 60 billion messages are sent each day on Roblox'

Quote from Yonatan Raz-Fridman, Supersocial founder and CEO on the podcast Developments, Investments & Experiences in the Metaverse, by Bloomberg Intelligence, 5th November 2021.

12 minutes, 45 seconds in -

"More messages are sent daily by daily active users on Roblox than WhatsApp, more than 60bn messages, while on WhatsApp it's 50 billion" 

Source - Podcast 'Developments, Investments & Experiences in the Metaverse' by Bloomberg Intelligence, November 2021

Note - Roblox own statement is that 2.5bn messages are sent each day, and in December 2020 WhatsApp revealed that 100bn messages are sent each day on their platform.

The game 'I Expect You To Die 2' 'has generated >$1m in sales in the first week'

 "The sequel to Schell Games’ popular VR puzzle game hit a major milestone just one week after going on sale.

In 2016 Schell Games launched their game I Expect You To Die on Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, and SteamVR headsets. In this James Bond-esque adventure, players took on the role of a professional spy tasked with solving a variety of cinematic puzzles within a set period of time. Needless to say, the game was an instant hit, captivating VR players with its colorful setting and unique puzzle-solving mechanics.

Capitalizing on the success of the original game, Schell Games launched I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar in August of 2021. Now, less than a month after its release, developer Schell Games is claiming that its sequel title managed to surpass $1M in sales less than a week after launch. This is a huge milestone not only for the developer but for the VR industry in general."

Source:  VR Scout, 9th September 2021

Apple Arcade 'has 5m subscribers, with a churn rate of 20%'

 "Based on third party data services (e.g. SensorTower, which tracks downloads), Apple Arcade does not seem to be very popular. Most estimates suggest 5MM or fewer subscribers, which means the service is used by less than 0.5% of Apple’s 1.1B active iOS users.

[...]

Most telling, however, is Arcade’s churn. Roughly 20% of subscribers leave the service each month (implying an average tenure of only five months). This is three-and-a-half times the worst performing SVOD. In fact, Apple Arcade experiences more than twice the churn of HBO in the month after the finale of Game of Thrones… but every month! Note that Netflix’s churn is best in class by some margin."

Source:  Data from SensorTower and Antenna, cited by Matthew Ball in a blog post, 24th August 2021

Twitch has over 30m average daily visitors and an average viewership of 2.5m at any given moment

 "Facts & Figures

Average viewership at any given moment - 2.5 Million+

Unique creators streaming each month - 7 Million+

Average daily visitors - 30 Million+

Employees around the world - 1,800

Minutes watched in 2020 - 1 Trillion+"

Source:  Twitch Press Centre, retrieved 1st February 2021

UK adults bought 21m new connected devices during the lockdown

"One in five UK adults (21%) – the equivalent of 10.3 million consumers - purchased at least one new digital device as a result of spending more time at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic according to Deloitte’s Digital Consumer Trends 2020 report. In total, up to 21.2 million digital devices were purchased during the first two months of the lockdown period, including two million printers and monitors.

Deloitte’s research, carried out in May 2020 and surveying the digital habits of 4,150 respondents between the ages of 16 and 75, found that UK adults used 170.3 million devices* daily during the first two months of lockdown, equating to 3.5 devices on average per person.

Games consoles, laptops, smart speakers and eReaders saw the highest uptick in usage. Among those who own the devices, daily usage of games consoles rose by 10 percentage-points, with 44% of owners using their console daily, up from 34% in 2019. Meanwhile, daily smart speaker usage rose from 59% to 66%; laptop usage rose from 67% to 73%; and eReader usage rose from 30% to 34%.

Fitness bands and smart watches both experienced a decline in usage as consumers spent more time at home as a result of the pandemic. 60% of fitness band owners used their device daily during the lockdown period, down from 64% in 2019, while daily smart watch usage declined from 64% to 62%. This comes despite an overall increase in the adoption of wearables, from 27% to 31% in the last year."

Source:  Data from Deloitte, reported by Cambridge Wireless, 25th August 2020

More data here 

The median age of golf fans is 64, EPL is 43, and eSports is 25

"The median age of golf fans is 64, for English Premier League football it is 43 and for eSports it’s 25. Fortnite skews even younger, for both fans and participants: the average age of the players on stage is 16."

Source:  Data quoted by the FT, 3rd August 2019

All of the top 100 players at the Twitch World Cup were male

"This weekend the best Fortnite players in the world gathered at Flushing Meadows in New York to compete in the game’s first ever World Cup Finals for $30m (£24m) in prize money. Tens of thousands of spectators packed the famed Arthur Ashe stadium to watch the action live, and many millions more viewed on Twitch and YouTube. Fortnite is, after all, one of the biggest entertainment brands on the planet, played by hundreds of millions. Amid all the hype and fanfare around the finals, however, one depressing fact remained unavoidable: not a single one of the 100 finalists was female."

Source:  The Guardian, 29th July 2019

Music streaming revenues have overtaken physical sales in the UK

"New digital services are turning the UK into a country of subscribers rather than entertainment buyers as music follows video and games to become a majority ‘rental’ market for the first time, according to figures revealed in the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) Yearbook, published today (March 5).
Revenues for paid-for music subscription services rose 38% in 2018 to £829m with the result that subscription now accounts for 62% of total recorded music revenues. Ownership formats like CDs, vinyl LPs and downloads now only account for 38% of revenues.
Key to the growth in people paying for access to music rather than ownership in 2018 was the work of streaming retailers like Spotify, YouTube and Deezer who continued to convert their free-tier users into paying subscribers, while Amazon introduced many more of its customers to its music streaming service - not least through the success of the Amazon Echo smart speaker.
Games first became a majority access rather than ownership market in 2016.  Video followed suit in 2017 with the rise of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky’s NOW TV.  This Subscription-Video-On-Demand (SVOD) sector grew by 31% in 2018 and is now responsible for over 55% of total video revenues.
Now music has joined the party to become a majority rental market."

Source:  Entertainment Retailers Association, 5th March 2019

Also - US stats here

Marshmello played a concert for 10m people in Fortnite

"Yesterday (February 2), DJ star Marshmello played an exclusive in-game concert in Fornite at 2pm ET. Fortnite players could watch the virtual show for free, so long as they made sure their avatar was available at the concert’s location (Pleasant Park).
The numbers are now coming in on the event’s audience, and they’re mighty impressive: according to reliable sources, over 10 million concurrent users witnessed Marshmello’s virtual concert. These people’s in-game avatars were all able to hit the virtual dancefloor in front of Marshmello’s own avatar and show off their moves.
Fans now can, and no doubt will, buy official Marshmello X Fortnite merch – with a hooded sweatshirt setting you back no less than $55. (Youth sizes are, of course, available.) And the official extended mix of the Fortnite set is available exclusively on Apple Music."
Source:  Music Business Worldwide, 3rd February 2019

Fortnite 'is making more than $300m a month in revenues'

"To start, consider one of Fortnite’s signature achievements to date: its extraordinary revenue generation. In May 2018 (i.e. when the registered userbase was 38% smaller than today), SuperData estimated Fortnite was pulling in $318MM per month. To put this in perspective, The Avengers: Infinity War (the highest grossing film of 2018) did $2.1B in lifetime revenue at global box office, Candy Crush (which, unlike Fortnite, is available in China) peaked at around $150MM per month, and the biggest opening in gaming history, Grand Theft Auto: V, saw $1B in sales in its first five days (notably, the game was sold via the upfront/one-time payment model). No game has ever pulled in Fortnite’s sales figures, let alone month after month.
Except that last point isn’t true. Games generating billions of dollars per year have been around for a decade – it’s just that few of them have been big in the West. 2012’s Puzzle Dragon and 2013’s Monster Strike each grossed more than $7B to date, with League of Legends not far behind. 2016’s Honor of Kings (AKA Arena of Valor) is approaching $4B in gross revenue. Fate/Grand Order is at more than $2B (and was developed by DelightWorks, which is 100% owned by a single individual Akihito Shoji), and in 2018 – the year of Fortnite and PUBG – Fate/Grand Order was the year’s most tweeted about game. Disney’s Tsum Tsum, a mobile title based on a Disney line of plushies, has grossed more than $1.5B. And notably, most of these games generated almost all of this revenue from just two markets: Japan and China (though to be fair, Fortnite is yet to launch in China). Still, there have been some record-breaking titles that, like Fortnite, were also hits in the West. Pokémon Go, for example, has grossed more than $2B to date, while Candy Crush Saga is at more than $5B."
Source:  Redef, 5th February 2019

Plus - Over $500m in revenue on iOS devices in less than a year

Fortnight has an estimated 200m players, and has generated an estimated $3bn in profits

"[In] September of 2017, Fortnite’s second iteration, “Battle Royale,” hit the web, and went on to spend much of 2018 going viral. The game’s concept is pretty simple: 99 players are dropped into a virtual battleground, at which point they gather weapons and digitally fight to the death until one player is left. That player wins.
As of today, there are an estimated 200 million Fortnite players worldwide, and the game can be played on consoles, PCs and iOS and Android smartphones.
“Fortnite is everywhere because the barrier to entry is so low,” said Jeff Gerstmann, editor-in-chief of Giant Bomb, a video game review site. “It’s available everywhere. Almost anyone can play it on a phone, anywhere they can play games. By virtue of it all over the place and free to play and a very popular type of game in terms of Battle Royale stuff, it’s kind of a perfect storm. It really all came together for them in a big way.”
A big way, and a lucrative way. Epic Games, the developer behind Fortnite, has not released official figures on how much revenue or profit the game has brought in, but according to sources with knowledge of the business, it’s roughly $3 billion."

Source:  PYMNTS, 5th January 2019

Video games account for more than half of UK entertainment market

"The video games sector now accounts for more than half of the UK's entire entertainment market, according to a new report.
The industry is worth £3.86bn ($4.85bn) - more than double its value in 2007 - said the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).
That makes it more lucrative than video and music combined.
The success is largely down to three games: Fifa 19, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
The games market has grown, despite the fact that the physical console and PC games market shrank slightly in 2018, and digital also had a modest 12.5% growth.
Chief executive of ERA, Kim Bayley said: "The games industry has been incredibly effective in taking advantage of the potential of digital technology to offer new and compelling forms of entertainment. Despite being the youngest of our three sectors, it is now by far the biggest.""
Source:  BBC News, 3rd January 2019

Pokémon GO has generated an estimated $1.8bn in payments from players in 2 years

"Released two years ago today, Niantic’s Pokémon GO became an overnight sensation. While the fervor has subsided in the 24 months since that game-changing day, players worldwide continue to spend more than $2 million per day in their quest to catch those original Pokémon and the dozens that have been added since launch. This has led to the game reaching $1.8 billion in player spending, according to the latest Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates, having crossed the $1 billion milestone in January 2017."

Source:  Sensor Tower, 6th July 2018

Top activities performed on smart phones by American users

Source:  Parks Associates, 14th June 2018

Teens in the US list Food, Beauty and Video Games as things they'd most like to spend money on

"Overall teen spending up 6% from fall and up 2% from a year ago.
Food, beauty and video games continue to dominate teen wallet.
Athletic cycle above historic average but streetwear cycle accelerates.
Teens opt for Snapchat and Instagram as Facebook stabilizes.
Spending & Shopping Behavior
Food reaccelerates as teens’ No. 1 spending category, returning to its 24% peak.
Male spending on video games reaches a new peak at 13%, closing in on fashion.
Beauty spending hit a new high for females at $368 per year led by skincare, up 18% year-over-year.
Department stores and legacy channels continue to shed share as online hits new highs.
Brand Preferences
Streetwear has seen the largest incremental gains led by Vans (No. 1 footwear brand) and Supreme (No. 7 apparel brand); 1990s revival underway with Champion and Tommy Hilfiger.
Nike mindshare declines; adidas is firmly No. 3 brand (14% share footwear, 6% apparel).
Ralph Lauren moves out of top-10 brand list for males, formerly a top-10 brand since 2002.
Intent to buy iPhone reaches a new high – 84% of Gen-Z will choose the iPhone next (compared to 82% last fall).
eBay mindshare declined to its lowest level recorded at 1.8%, compared to 3% in fall 2017."

Source:  Piper Jaffray's Taking Stock With Teens report, 16th April 2018

Pokémon Go generated an estimated $5.8m in revenue in a single day

"Mobile hit Pokémon Go had its highest revenue in a day since its viral launch last July, according to market analyst Sensor Tower. It’s all thanks to Legendary Pokémon.
Players spent around $5.8 million on July 23 on iOS and Android, when developer Niantic debuted Articuno and Lugia, two of five highly anticipated Legendary Pokémon to catch. This is despite its snafu at Pokémon Go Fest, a celebratory event on July 22 that went sideways when 20,000 attendees couldn’t play the game because of technical issues.
Niantic has kept up a steady drumbeat of in-game events and earlier this year launched an overhaul of the gym battle system. These efforts have maintained the attention of core players, but it looks like the Legendary Pokémon have drawn the most interest. Sensor Tower found that Pokémon Go is now No. 1 in the Apple App Store top-grossing chart in 23 countries including the U.S.
Last month, Pokémon Go passed $1.2 billion revenue. If it keeps rolling out content with high demand, we might see it reach another milestone."

Source:  VentureBeat, 26th July 2017

Mobile screen size correlates to mobile gaming session lengths

Source:  Blog post from Flurry, 20th June 2017

The revenue from eSports is expected to rise to over $450m in 2017

"The revenue from eSports is expected to rise from $130m (£100m) in 2012 to $465m (£365m) this year, according to Newzoo, the eSports data expert. The global audience will reach 385 million this year, made up of 191 million regular viewers and a further 194 million occasional viewers. ESports stars such as the South Korean player Faker, who has just turned 21, are already paid up to £2m a year, and that’s not including bonuses and sponsorship. But will they ever compete with, say, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo? And should we be worried if they do?"

Source:  The Guardian, 16th June 2017

Pokemon GO has sent more than 500 million visitors to McDonalds in Japan

"Pokémon GO-maker Niantic says it has driven 500 million visitors to sponsored locations like McDonald’s Japan where gamers can score a special virtual good. But it never said how much those sponsors paid per visitor delivered by the game.
But in an interview published yesterday by Brazil’s Globo newspaper, Niantic VP of strategic partnerships Mathieu de Fayet said (translated), “The idea is to offer players items at certain locations, and partners pay $0.15 for each visitor attracted to the game. And we’ve already attracted 500 million visitors. In Japan [at the game’s peak last summer], each activated McDonald’s store attracted 2,000 visitors a day.”
However, we followed up with Niantic, and a spokesperson claimed that $0.15 number is incorrect, possibly due to a translation error. The company says “Niantic’s cost per visit (CPV) model visit has partners spending less than $.50 / daily unique visit to sponsored locations.”
At $0.15 per visit the math would indicate that the sponsorships could have racked up $75 million in revenue for Niantic, while the high bound of $0.50 would have generated $250 million.
Given that McDonald’s Japan activated 3,000 stores in the country, that price would mean that at the game’s peak, the fast-food giant would have paid out roughly $900,000 per day to Niantic for the Pokémon GO sponsorship at $0.15 per visitor, or $3 million per day at $0.50 each."

Source:  TechCrunch, 31st May 2017