“F2P will not be dying,” in accordance with a Newzoo special focus report that challenges assumptions that free-to-play is in decline.
In keeping with the brand new evaluation – which makes use of Newzoo’s Sport Efficiency Monitor, masking PC and console engagement throughout 37 markets, excluding China, India, and cell – F2P’s share of playtime fell 2.9 proportion factors between 2021 and 2025, to 29.3%, however absolute hours remained broadly flat.
Newzoo attributes the autumn largely to progress elsewhere available in the market, together with premium video games and Roblox.
On PC, F2P playtime grew whilst its share declined, whereas on console, F2P playtime fell, with the decline concentrated in a handful of established live-service titles. F2P live-service launches on PC and console peaked at 36 titles in 2017, however the annual common fell 31%, from 21.3 titles in 2020-2022 to 14.7 in 2023-2025, despite the fact that releases rose throughout the broader market.
The report cites rising prices, better dangers, and established aggressive titles as making it tougher for brand new F2P live-service video games to interrupt by way of.
F2P income can also be turning into much less concentrated among the many high 5 titles. Their mixed share on console fell from 79% in 2021 to 72% in 2025, and on PC from 68% to 65%, throughout the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.
Gacha, which Newzoo defines as progression-based loot field monetization, has change into the primary space of F2P progress on PC. The report counts 17 main gacha titles on PC and console in 2025, up from three in 2021. PC gacha playtime grew 92% between 2021 and 2025, including 864 million hours, whereas console gacha added 85 million hours over the identical interval regardless of shrinking in two of these years.
RPG was the one F2P style to achieve share on each platforms. On PC, its share of F2P playtime rose 5.3 proportion factors to 14.3%, with Wuthering Waves, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero including a mixed 1.1 billion hours by 2025. On console, RPG share edged up from 10.0% to 10.3%. Zenless Zone Zero, Wuthering Waves, and Honkai: Star Rail gained floor as they launched there, whereas Genshin Influence fell.
Newzoo says viewers overlap suggests a lot of the PC gacha progress comes from gamers transferring between titles within the class. It provides that the expansion has not translated into proportionate income, pointing to “a widening hole between engagement and monetization.”
Several new releases entered Newzoo’s Top 20 revenue charts in August, with EA Sports activities Madden NFL 27 debuting at No. 2 on console and Home Home’s co-op title Massive Stroll rating No. 3 on PC.