The biggest games companies are taking a growing share of the money
Ten companies now take more than half of what players spend with game publishers, and since 2020 the rest of the industry has stopped growing. Which companies are large decides which games get funded and who survives the next downturn.
What is a concentration index?
It adds up the square of every company's share of a market, so one company with all of it scores 10,000. Under the US merger guidelines restored in 2023, a market below 1,000 is unconcentrated, 1,000 to 1,800 moderately concentrated, and above 1,800 highly concentrated.
Latest figure · 2025
56%
The ten largest earned $100.3 billion of $179 billion. The figure counts the Saudi fund's purchase of EA as complete, and 2025 was the year the Switch 2 launched.
Where it stands
Joost van Dreunen, tracking 153 companies, finds the ten largest took 56% of publishing revenue in 2025, up from 45% in 2020. Since 2020 they grew 51% while the rest, together, did not grow. Buying studios explains about a sixth of the rise. Matthew Ball, before he joined Xbox, found game makers outside China gained $1 billion of the $24 billion added since 2020. On PC in Western markets, though, games outside the top 20 now earn most of the money.
The ten largest publishers' share fell from 65% in 2010 to 45% in 2020, as mobile games and Steam brought in thousands of new companies, then climbed back to 56% in 2025.
SourceSuperJoost Playlist, Joost van Dreunen (30 September 2026)
| Year | The ten largest game publishers' share of publishing revenue, in Joost van Dreunen's panel of 153 companies |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 65% |
| 2020 | 45% |
| 2025 | 56% |
Timeline
2010
The ten largest publishers take 65% of the money
In 2010 the ten largest game publishers earned a combined $27 billion of a $41 billion publishing market, on Joost van Dreunen's count across 153 companies. Half of that top ten has since been bought by others or dropped out of it.
2017
Mobile publishing is at its most spread out
Mobile was the most concentrated of the three devices in 2010, until thousands of studios followed free-to-play onto phones. Joost van Dreunen's index bottoms out at 459 in 2017, then nearly doubles to 861 by 2025, as the cost of finding players after Apple's 2021 privacy change pushed publishers toward scale.
2020
The ten largest fall to 45%, their lowest share
Mobile games and Steam had brought thousands of new companies into the market, and the ten largest publishers took 45% of publishing revenue in 2020. PC was at its least concentrated, at 561 on the index.
2023
The ten biggest new Steam games take 61% of new games' revenue
Video Game Insights, which sells Steam estimates, finds that the ten biggest games released on Steam in 2023 took 61% of the revenue of all games released that year, up from 43% in 2020. Baldur's Gate 3 alone took 21%. It counts sales of the games, not spending inside them.
Sensor Tower VGI, Global PC Games Market Report 2024 (January 2024)
Console publishing is at its most concentrated since 2008
Console reaches 1,400 on Joost van Dreunen's index in 2023, the year Microsoft completed its purchase of Activision Blizzard, up from a low of 858 in 2016. It reads 1,304 in 2025.
2024
Embracer says it will split into three companies
Embracer Group announces it will separate into three listed companies: Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain & Friends and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends.
2025
Tencent buys a quarter of Ubisoft's biggest games
Tencent completes a €1.16 billion cash investment in Vantage Studios, the Ubisoft subsidiary built around Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six, for a 26.32% economic interest.
Chinese companies earn half of what the ten largest make
Chinese firms took 52% of the ten largest publishers' revenue in 2025, up from 8% in 2010, while US firms fell from 37% to 28% and Japanese firms from 44% to 11%. Tencent alone took 19% of all publishing revenue.
Ball: game makers outside China got almost none of the growth
Matthew Ball, writing in April 2026 as an outside analyst, finds that the market realized by game makers outside China grew by $1 billion, or 0.9%, from 2020 to 2025, while the whole market grew by $24 billion. The rest went to Chinese players and publishers, console platform subscriptions and Roblox.
Epyllion, Matthew Ball, The State of Video Gaming in 2026 (25 April 2026)
Big-budget games earn more on Steam, and indie games stay flat
Sensor Tower estimates that big-budget franchises earned $3.98 billion on Steam in 2025, up from $3.13 billion in 2024. Mid-sized franchises grew to $1.23 billion, and indie franchises stayed flat at $0.64 billion.
GameDev Reports, Dmitriy Byshonkov, relaying Sensor Tower (30 September 2026)
2026
Xbox hires Matthew Ball as chief strategy officer
Xbox names the analyst Matthew Ball, whose report this page draws on, as its chief strategy officer on 20 May 2026. The report dates from April 2026, when he was still an outside analyst. From this point his public comments are an Xbox executive's.
Xbox says owning studios lost it money
Asha Sharma, who runs Xbox, tells staff that four studios will leave Xbox and that "it is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio." In a typical year, she writes, "we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested."
Consequences
012025
The bigger the company, the faster it grew
Since 2010 the ten largest publishers' combined revenue rose 3.7 times, the five largest 4.2 times, and the single largest 7.4 times, from $4.5 billion to Tencent's $33.6 billion.
022025
The largest game companies run platforms
Most of the ten largest in 2025 run platforms or sit inside larger conglomerates, Joost van Dreunen finds. Only Take-Two and Century Huatong are companies that make nothing but games.
032025
Ten publishers take 94% of console revenue
The five largest console publishers take 74%, up from 62% in 2020, on Joost van Dreunen's count. In console publishing, he writes, "there is almost no middle left."
042025
Mergers did a sixth of it
Undo Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard and Take-Two's of Zynga, Joost van Dreunen calculates, and the industry's 2025 index reads 539 instead of 567. The largest firms outgrowing everyone else did the rest.
Objections
Counterpoint2018
Newzoo's rankings show no dip before 2020
Newzoo counted the 25 largest public games companies taking 80% of global games revenue in 2018, with the ten largest growing 19% that year and the next fifteen 6%. Joost van Dreunen's panel has the ten largest losing share through those years. Newzoo measures against its estimate of the whole market, so the two are not like for like.
PocketGamer.biz, Alex Forbes-Calvin, relaying Newzoo (18 April 2019)
Counterpoint2024
Indie games doubled their share of Steam
Video Game Insights estimates that indie games took 48% of Steam's revenue from game sales in the first nine months of 2024, against 28% in 2020 and 24% in 2018. Its definition of indie includes Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld, and it leaves out spending inside games.
Sensor Tower VGI, Global Indie Games Market Report 2024 (October 2024)
Counterpoint2025
On PC, games outside the top 20 now earn most of the money
Newzoo finds that in Western markets, games ranked 21st or lower took 56% of PC revenue in 2025, up from 48% in 2022. Its analyst Tianyi Gu says that "doesn't make the market unconcentrated, but it does make games below the very top more commercially relevant than before." Newzoo counts games, not the companies that own them.
Counterpoint2025
The 2025 figure counts a buyout that had not closed
Joost van Dreunen's 2025 figures treat the Saudi Public Investment Fund's purchase of EA as complete, though it closed in 2026. 2025 was also the year the Switch 2 launched, which he notes historically spikes Nintendo's revenue.
What to watch
2027
Newzoo's next PC and console report
April 2027, when Newzoo usually publishes its PC and console report. It will show whether games outside the top 20 keep gaining on PC after taking 56% of revenue in Western markets in 2025.
2027
Embracer lists Fellowship Entertainment
Calendar year 2027, when Embracer plans to list Fellowship Entertainment on Nasdaq Stockholm, separating the group into two listed companies.
Embracer Group, Fellowship Entertainment spin-off (read 1 October 2026)
2031
Whether the ten largest reach two-thirds by 2030
Joost van Dreunen predicts that the ten largest publishers, at 56% of revenue in 2025, will take two-thirds of it by 2030. He expects AI to let more people make games, but not more of them to make money.
Further reading
- AnalysisOligopoly Go!superjoost.substack.com
- ReportingAnalysts say PC gaming is now the one platform where more than 50% of revenue comes from games outside the top 20pcgamer.com
- AnalysisEpyllion's State of Video Gaming in 2026matthewball.co
Where to follow it SuperJoost Playlist, Matthew Ball's yearly State of Video Gaming, Newzoo's PC and console report, Sensor Tower VGI, Sensor Tower's State of Mobile
- Streamers are spreading across several platforms
- Steam's glut is making discovery the hard part
- Governments are paying for games as culture and industry
- Apple and Google are being forced to open their stores
- Game workers are winning union contracts
- Creative workers are fighting over AI consent and disclosure
- Developers are turning against generative AI
- Regulators are forcing child-safety changes on platforms
- India has outlawed games played for money
- Saudi state money is buying major games companies
- Publishers are reviving dormant franchises
- Console makers are keeping games exclusive again
- Mobile live events are converging on one playbook
- AI teammates are reaching players in short tests
- Chinese studios are trying to build premium global franchises
- Gambling money is moving into games and the platforms around them
- Mobile publishers are moving payments to their own web shops
- Esports is running on Saudi money
- Game subscriptions are stalling
- Investors are abandoning blockchain games
- Handheld gaming PCs are losing momentum