The GameDev industry has stopped growing. Despite strong top-line numbers — mobile ($96.2B), console ($52.4B), and PC ($40.4B) — studios are being stretched by rising production costs, gameplay fatigue, and shifting user expectations.  

The Global GameDev market is valued at $189.3B in 2025, signalling stabilization — not acceleration. In mature regions like the US and Europe, growth has stalled entirely. The industry is under pressure: studios are shutting down, layoffs are rising (Meta, Codemasters, Respawn, Nerial, NetEase Games and more), the old success formulas no longer work, and the post-pandemic boom is over.

Duamentes Gaming Report 2025 highlights the urgent need for change: player retention is broken, and most studios fail to understand what players actually want — and by the time they find out in beta, it’s too late to save the game or the business behind it, with examples including:

1. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (Rocksteady, 2024) launched to high expectations but faced poor reviews and rapid player drop-off, reportedly losing over $200 million before support was scaled back in early 2025.

1. Concord (Firewalk Studios, 2024) drew immediate criticism for lacking originality in a crowded hero shooter market, with doubts about its relevance even before launch.

1. XDefiant (Ubisoft, 2024) launched with promise but quickly declined due to balance issues and low retention, leading to its shutdown and studio closure in 2025.

“Studios keep building games players don’t want, delay testing, misread player behavior, and try to fix retention too late. We’re seeing the same mistakes repeated across platforms,” said Maria Amirkhanyan, Head of Gaming Division at Duamentes.  

Mind the Gap: Why Developers Are Losing Touch with Players 

Duamentes report combines global market trends with industry leaders’ in-depth interviews, surveys, and players’ behavioral insights — showing a clear gap between player expectations and developer workflows.

Players want meaning, not just mechanics — they want emotional clarity, narrative hooks, social features that foster belonging, and a genuine respect for their time, not manipulation.

“As short-form platforms like TikTok change how users discover games, the bar for first-session clarity has never been higher. Studios now compete not just with other games — but with every other moment of screen time,” said Maria Amirkhanyan, Head of Gaming Division at Duamentes.

Player challenges 

• 92% of players churn before Day 30
• 70% of players drop off within the first few sessions, often before the game has a chance to connect.
• 38% decide whether to quit during the very first session seeking emotional connection, social features, and immediate clarity.
• 60% of new mobile games launched in 5 crowded genres and most struggled to break through.
• 40% of games entering new regions fail due to cultural mismatches in UX, tone, or monetisation.

Industry & Studio Challenges 

• 71% of studios delay user testing until beta — but by then, it’s often too late to fix what matters.
• 49% of developers say unionisation is necessary to protect working conditions in an industry increasingly shaped by burnout and uncertainty.
• 40% of developers say their teams have been impacted by layoffs.
• 46% of developers work over 50 hours per week — up from 35% last year

Root causes of failed game releases  

The report points to a growing industry divide between those who adapt and those who don’t. As outlined, many studios still rely on practices that no longer serve them:

• “Build first, test later” leads to costly rework
• Relying on genre popularity over emotional engagement
• Live service overload without meaningful progression
• Ignoring cultural nuance during global launches
• Designing for metrics, not meaning

“In turbulent times, playtesting and user research are more important than ever for releasing games that players, critics, and investors love. Gaining early insight into the player experience helps identify problems while there’s still time to fix them, aligns teams around a shared vision of what’s being built, and clarifies development priorities — reducing costly rework and making production more predictable and less chaotic,” stated Steve Bromley, Games User Research Consultant, author of How To Be A Games User Researcher.

Indies Are Rising  

While many AAA studios struggle to innovate under mounting costs and conservative pipelines, indie studios are emerging as the creative engine of the industry. With players increasingly seeking smaller, emotionally resonant, and more affordable experiences, indies are filling a crucial gap.

“The quality and relevance of indie games will soar as more developers embrace independence and tools improve… Indie games will claim an all-time high share of top Metacritic titles, putting indie studios at the forefront of innovation,” said Amir Satvat, Game Industry Strategist & Founder of Amir Satvat’s Games Community.

Six Principles to Build High-Performing Games   

From the studios that succeed, the patterns are clear — and they’re embedded in the six principles outlined in Duamentes Gaming Report:

1. Test onboarding and narrative in early prototyping
2. Align UX, monetisation, and player emotion
3. Build modular systems to adapt faster
4. View player feedback as strategic input, not noise
5. Invest in junior talent pipelines, protecting creativity over time
6. Respect player time by replacing grind with clarity and purpose

These principles are the result of Duamentes in-depth research, cross-industry benchmarking, and firsthand analysis of what sets high-performing studios apart. As a strategic and product consulting firm operating across 40 countries and 20 industries for nearly a decade, Duamentes has been closely tracking market dynamics. While the industry tightens, the demand for deep, actionable expertise continues to grow.

“We already have that expertise, with a cross-industrial approach and extensive insight database, and now we’re strengthening it further by launching a dedicated Gaming Division, which we’re announcing at the AI & Games User Research conference,” said Maria Amirkhanyan.