Happy New Year! I am writing this newsletter at the end of January, full of
optimism and enthusiasm for the year ahead and the opportunities that await us.

The video games news site Games Industry.biz recently published some data on the
year ending December 2023 and the numbers spoke to the sheer scale and global
nature of the video games market. They estimated global revenues driven by video
games at $184bn with mobile and console games taking the lion's share of that
revenue, the full summary is available to view here
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-number-2023

Whilst at first sight the picture of the market is positive, there were also
many challenges in 2023 as economies around the world made the adjustment to new
conditions and consumer spending was squeezed. When we look again at the results
of 2023, we notice that whilst the market continued to grow it was dominated by
the established brands such as Harry Potter, Call of Duty, and Zelda, and by the
biggest companies like Tencent, Activision Blizzard and NetEase. As consumers
are facing pressure on their household finances, it is no surprise that so many
have turned to games and publishers that they recognized. In reality, and
despite the positive global revenue numbers, 2023 was a challenging year for
many in the games industry and unfortunately it was not a surprise to see so
many publishers and developers announcing layoffs towards the end of last year.

Steam has become a critical "proving ground" for virtually all new video games,
as a positive response from the Steam audience and successfully generating early
revenue can prove to be a foundation for a new game to be considered for further
publishing on console formats. However, 2023 saw a record number of new games on
Steam with over 14,500 arriving on the platform last year, with all the
challenges of visibility and discovery that brings