In the evolving landscape of free-to-play (F2P) gaming, recent data from Newzoo reveals a notable stagnation in playtime, alongside a marked decline in the launch of new live-service titles. As of 2025, F2P games accounted for 29.3% of total gaming hours across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, reflecting a decrease of 2.9 percentage points since 2021. Despite this decline, the absolute playtime remains stable at approximately 31 billion hours annually, as players increasingly gravitate toward other gaming genres.
The state of the F2P segment
Roblox has emerged as a significant player in this space, capturing 7.9% of all gaming time, which represents a substantial increase of 4.6 percentage points compared to 2021. Meanwhile, traditional heavyweights like Call of Duty and Fortnite have seen their shares diminish, with Call of Duty dropping to 6% and Fortnite to 7%. Interestingly, when considering both Fortnite and Roblox within the F2P segment, the overall playtime rises to 44.2%, slightly above 2021 levels, with growth primarily attributed to Roblox.
On the PC front, while F2P games have experienced a slight uptick in playtime, their overall share has decreased due to the faster growth of lower-priced premium releases. Conversely, console players have reduced their engagement with F2P titles, a trend attributed to the decline of older live-service games. Notably, Apex Legends has seen a 24% drop in hours played since 2025.
The launch of new F2P live-service games has also dwindled significantly. From a peak of over 30 titles in 2017, the average annual release has dropped to 14.7 between 2023 and 2025, a decline of 31%. Newzoo attributes this contraction to escalating development costs and the challenges new titles face in competing with established games.
Revenue concentration remains high, with the top five F2P titles on PC generating 65% of the segment’s revenue in 2025, down slightly from 68% in 2021. On consoles, this figure stands at 72%, compared to 79% previously. However, the overall revenue from F2P titles has faced challenges, particularly on PlayStation and Xbox, where it fell by 8.2% and 23.6%, respectively. The only platform to witness an improvement was PC, where revenue per hour played increased by 10% year-over-year.
Gacha games and RPGs
In a shift towards monetization strategies, gacha games have gained traction, defined by Newzoo as progression-based loot box systems. The number of major gacha titles has surged from three in 2021 to 17 by 2025, indicating a growing preference for progression-oriented gameplay over competitive formats.
On PC, gacha playtime has skyrocketed by 92%, translating to an additional 864 million hours, reaching approximately 1.8 billion hours annually. In contrast, console engagement with gacha games has seen only modest growth, with playtime increasing by just 85 million hours over the same period.
RPGs have emerged as the sole F2P genre to experience growth on both PC and console platforms. On PC, RPGs accounted for 14.3% of all F2P playtime in 2025, up from 9% in 2021. This growth is largely driven by newer gacha RPGs like Wuthering Waves and Honkai: Star Rail, which collectively contributed 1.1 billion hours of playtime. However, engagement with established titles like Genshin Impact has waned on consoles.
Despite the fluctuations in engagement and revenue, Newzoo emphasizes that the F2P model is far from obsolete, although the anticipated revenue growth has yet to materialize alongside the increase in player engagement.
