IGN Introduces Gaming Trends Platform, Illuminating the Impact of Mobile and Roblox on the Industry

IGN Entertainment has unveiled Gaming Trends, a data-driven insights platform leveraging the company's vast reach to forecast the future trajectory of gaming and entertainment. With a staggering 500 million monthly visitors across 110 countries, IGN's extensive reach provides a comprehensive temperature check of current trends. The initial study yields several key findings, which are summarized below. Signing up for Gaming Trends is complimentary, and viewing the video, hosted by IGN's SVP of publishing, John Davison, offers additional data points that informed the study. Key highlights include the growing preference for mobile gaming among younger players, with 93% of Gen Alpha opting for mobile, according to IGN's segmentation study. Moreover, mobile preference is increasing among Millennials, with 32% citing it as their preferred device. The study also asserts that Fortnite has significantly contributed to the Nintendo Switch's recent success, particularly given its unavailability on the App Store since August 2020. Davison estimates that approximately 81 million people have played Fortnite on Switch, surpassing the sales of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Despite the Switch 2's successful launch, mobile gaming will continue to pose a threat to Nintendo. The Unreal Editor for Fortnite has resulted in nearly 200,000 games created within the Fortnite ecosystem, while Roblox boasts around 40 million user-made experiences. Daily concurrent user numbers on Roblox have grown from 3.8 million in June 2022 to over 25 million in June 2025, whereas Fortnite has grown from 1.2 million to 1.77 million concurrent users. On Roblox, Grow a Garden has peaked at 21.3 million players, becoming the most popular game by concurrent user count. A Minecraft movie has achieved immense success, grossing $950 million at the box office and driving player interest in the game. Similarly, Five Nights at Freddy's has become Blumhouse's highest-grossing movie, with a sequel slated for release in December. A key difference between earlier attempts at video game adaptations and current ones is that the people in charge are often dedicated fans or original creators, as seen with Amazon's Fallout TV show and the upcoming Elden Ring film adaptation. Games merchandise has become a significant industry, with Oracle data showing that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was trending well among players in January, leading to IGN securing exclusive merchandising rights. The merchandise sold 16% more across 60 days than IGN's popular Fallout TV show merchandise. Younger generations tend to be loyal to specific experiences rather than platforms or genres, and they no longer identify as gamers but as players of a particular game. Game communities now resemble sports fans, celebrating content drops in games like League of Legends. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a resurgence of interest in eSports, led by one-on-one fighting games. The upcoming 2D fighting game Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls has garnered significant attention from IGN's audience, and the wireless PlayStation fighting stick, Project Defiant, has amassed 6 million views on IGN social media. IGN conducts a biennial study on audience attitudes towards older games, revealing that people are increasingly nostalgic for franchises from their childhood, with 71% agreeing that they feel more nostalgic for such franchises. While there is still room for new IP to emerge, the success of games like Split Fiction and Black Myth: Wukong demonstrates that new titles can breakthrough. Subscription services are expanding, and old games on these services will always be new to someone, much like how the nineties sitcom Friends attracted a new generation of fans on Netflix. Gen Z and Gen Alpha expect instant access to every song, TV show, and video game. IGN has found that nostalgia-based content has driven significant increases in subscriptions on Humble, including Tomb Raider, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. The 2025 summer showcases saw the announcement of 770 games, with the release date of GTA 6 being pushed to 2026, resulting in a flood of games in the September to November release window. Some of the new titles that drove the biggest traffic on IGN include Resident Evil: Requiem, Metal Gear Solid Delta, Silent Hill F, 007 First Light, Pragmata, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and Ghost of Yotei. IGN Entertainment promises to deliver more insights from Gaming Trends, with its next report assessing the accuracy of its predictions.