Newzoo Reports Flat or Declining Year-Over-Year Growth for Most Established Live-Service Titles in H1 2026

Most established live-service and evergreen titles experienced flat performance or year-over-year declines during the first half of 2026 compared to 2025, according to data from Newzoo. The data firm released these findings in its Global Games Market Report, noting that growth was restricted to a small number of titles. These growing games include World of Warcraft, Diablo 4, Overwatch, Roblox, and select international releases from Tencent.

Digital revenues declined year-on-year across six Western markets in the first half of 2026. Newzoo attributed this trend to weakness in free-to-play and annualized premium games outweighing strong new releases. Despite these challenges, console player growth is forecast to reach 3% this year. This represents an increase from nearly flat growth of 0.5% in 2025, with the projected recovery driven by Grand Theft Auto 6 and reaccelerated by PlayStation.

Newzoo director of market intelligence Emmanuel Manu Rosier stated that without Grand Theft Auto 6, console revenues would remain flat compared to 2025. Additionally, the report outlines the top 10 public games companies for Q1 2026. Together, these companies generated $37.4 billion in game revenue, representing a 6.7% increase. Tencent led the group with $10.8 billion in revenue, followed by Sony at $5.2 billion and Microsoft at $5.1 billion.