In 2025, Chinese players will contribute 20% of global spending, with 84% of that flowing to domestic games.

Recently, Matthew Ball from Epyllion released the “2026 Video Game Industry Report,” stating that global game content sales reached $195.6 billion in 2025 (approximately 1.35 trillion RMB), a 5.3% year-over-year increase, but private investments plummeted by 55%.

In the console market, thanks to the popularity of subscription services like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass, game sales reached $41.6 billion, setting a new record. Meanwhile, sales and transaction volume for single-player games declined by nearly 11% year-over-year.

In the PC gaming market, unaffected by the post-pandemic downturn, it has grown by 30% since 2020. Chinese players contributed 20% of global spending, with 84% of their gaming expenditure on domestic games and only 16% flowing to foreign games.

In terms of investment, besides giants like Amazon, many small and medium studios such as Three Fields lack sufficient funding. When projects do not meet expectations, they struggle to sustain operations and are forced to lay off staff.

To reduce internal costs, an increasing number of studios are opting to outsource development processes. This indicates that, amid tightening funds, the industry is undergoing difficult structural adjustments, further squeezing the survival space for small and medium teams.