IGN Entertainment has launched Gaming Trends, a data-driven insights platform that utilises the company's vast reach to predict the future direction of gaming and entertainment. With 500 million monthly visitors across 110 countries, IGN's reach gives it an expansive temperature check of what's trending.
In its initial report, IGN's leadership draws a few conclusions on what that data reveals – shedding light on how mobile game development is reshaping the industry. Here are some key takeaways:
Mobile Gaming Reigns Supreme
Mobile gaming has become king, with 93% of Gen Alpha preferring to play games on their mobile devices. Interestingly, preference for mobile is also growing among Millennials, with 32% calling it their preferred device.
Fortnite's impact on the Nintendo Switch's success cannot be overstated. With an estimated 81 million people having played Fortnite on Switch – eclipsing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sales at 68 million copies sold – it's clear that mobile will remain a threat to Nintendo, despite the Switch 2's massive launch success.
UGC and User-Generated Content
Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) has resulted in almost 200,000 games being made by creators within the Fortnite ecosystem. While impressive, this figure is dwarfed by Roblox, which is home to around 40 million user-made experiences.
Daily concurrent user numbers have grown significantly in Roblox from 3.8 million in June 2022 to over 25 million in June 2026 – a testament to the power of user-generated content in mobile game development.
Games Powering Pop Culture
Games are now driving pop culture, with Minecraft's movie success raking in $950 million at the box office and driving player interest in the game. Similarly, Five Nights at Freddy's became Blumhouse's highest-grossing movie ever in 2023, passing $297 million at the box office.
Loyalty Has Changed
Millennials and Gen X tend to be loyal to platforms or genres – now, younger generations are more loyal to specific experiences. They no longer identify as gamers; instead, they identify as players of a specific game.
Game communities behave much like sports fans, celebrating content drops in games like League of Legends much like the release of entirely new games.
Nostalgia and New IP
Every two years, IGN conducts a study into audience attitudes towards older games, revealing that people are increasingly looking back. Now, 71% agree that they're feeling more and more nostalgic for franchises that were around when they were kids.
However, there's still room for new IP to breakthrough, as shown by the success of games like Split Fiction and Black Myth: Wukong – the latter peaking at 2.2 million concurrent players on Steam.
Subscription services are getting bigger and bigger, and old games on these services will always be new to someone. Gen Z and Gen Alpha now expect every song and TV show to be available to them instantly, and they expect the same for video games.
IGN has found that nostalgia-based content has been huge on Humble, including Tomb Raider, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which have driven big increases in subscriptions.