Analytics: Roblox and Minecraft audiences aren’t interested in AAA games.

Consulting company Newzoo has released another major report on the state of the gaming industry. One of the study’s main conclusions is that the audiences of Roblox and Minecraft are not interested in traditional AAA games.

This was stated by Ben Porter, director of consulting at Newzoo, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. According to him, the industry has changed dramatically over the past ten years: chasing максимально realistic graphics no longer guarantees popularity. The most popular games on the market today often rely not on visual fidelity, but on accessibility and virality. This is especially evident in the case of Roblox, whose playtime, according to Newzoo, grew by about 50% year-over-year.

At the same time, Roblox and Minecraft players do not exist in complete isolation from the rest of the market. Newzoo found a noticeable overlap between their audiences and other major live-service games: Roblox has a 55% overlap with Fortnite, 28% with GTA 5, and 26% with Call of Duty; Minecraft’s figures are 46%, 25%, and 22% respectively.

However, the situation is different when it comes to traditional AAA games. As Porter notes, Roblox and Minecraft users are 60% less likely to launch single-player blockbuster games than the “average standard gamer.” Among the titles that have especially little overlap with Roblox and Minecraft audiences, Newzoo mentions Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Borderlands 4, Ghost of Yotei, Alan Wake 2, and Hogwarts Legacy.

Newzoo believes this pattern can be explained not only by taste preferences, but also by demographics: Roblox and Minecraft are especially popular with younger audiences, who usually have a lot of free time but less money for expensive AAA releases.

For the industry, this is an important signal: if the habits of younger players persist into adulthood, the market may continue shifting toward free services and projects like Roblox and Minecraft, while classic AAA projects will have an even harder time fighting for players’ attention.

In the same report, Newzoo also predicts that by the end of 2028, PC game revenue will surpass consoles. ChatGPT is also seeing major success — the chatbot has outpaced Twitter and TikTok in audience growth.

Is the future of the gaming industry in projects like Roblox and Minecraft?