Rookie of the Year -
rewards a new IP that successfully set up the potential for a strong and enduring franchise
1.
It Takes Two -- the tone was set with A Way Out, but It Takes Two really is the breakout success that puts Hazelight Studios on the map
2.
Back 4 Blood -- I'm glad that Turtle Rock has found success with this new game, after Evolve flopped. The game had 6 million players within 2 weeks, thanks to Game Pass, and is now a platform the studio can build further upon.
3.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits -- it's a shame we never heard anything about the sales performance of this game, but there was a healthy amount of hype around its release, and the game looks fantastic, so I feel it deserves its spot in this list.
The reason I didn't nominate Valheim is because, while it's an amazing sales success of more than 8 million sales, the studio (Iron Gate) hasn't proportionally scaled-up to a state in which is can successfully support a live service product. Survival games are all the rage on PC, thanks to games like Ark, Monster Hunter and Rust. Valheim has a user score of 95% on Steam, which is amazing, and when there's an update, tens of thousands of people go back to the game, so the mind share is definitely there. However, I feel the developers made a decision to stay at the indie level and that limits the potential of the series. A theoretical sequel has a lot of potential, but I'm currently not convinced that potential will be fully used.
Niche Success of the Year -
rewards a game from a ongoing franchise that never crossed 1m before
1.
Guilty Gear: Strive -- an excellent new installment in the long-running fighting game series, well received, and bringing new players to the series.
2.
Psychonauts 2
3.
Hot Wheels Unleashed
Mobile Success of the Year -
rewards the most successful mobile game of the year
1.
Uma Musume: Pretty Derby -- this game launched in February 2021, is only available in Japan, and managed to gross $965 million in 2021, according to
Sensor Tower. This game is an unbelievably big achievement, so it deserves to be my nomination as mobile success of the year.
2.
Roblox -- last year was gigantic for Roblox. 20% growth on mobile, almost 50 million(!!) daily active players. There's a whole generation growing up with Roblox as their main perspective of social entertainment.
3.
Pokémon GO -- according to Sensor Tower, the game had its best year since launch in 2021, which is an insane achievement for a 5 year old game.
Acquisition of the Year -
rewards the acquistion that has and will have the bigger impact on the industry's landscape
1.
Asmodee by Embracer Group -- the Swedish very hungry catterpillar Embracer has been spending its way up the ranks in the console games landscape for a couple of years, and 2021 was a transformative year for them, because they've established a big presence in the mobile game market through the acquisitions of Easybrain in Feb 2021 and CrazyLabs in Aug 2021, but the most significant acquisitions to me were made by them in December: Dark Horse Comics and Asmodee, which mark the expansion of the group outside video games, into comics and physical games. Asmodee is the second-biggest publisher in the world of tabletop games, only behind Hasbro, and has a huge presence in trading card games and other forms of physical gaming. The marriage between Embracer and Asmodee (and Dark Horse) creates an enormous IP catalogue that can be used across PC, mobile, console, VR, tabletop gaming, trading card gaming, books and comics, and has transformed Embracer into a true multimedia conglomerate.
2.
Zenimax Media by Microsoft -- this was the first sign Microsoft was willing to spend a lot of money on a group level to make Game Pass a success and to make gaming a mainstay within the company. This deal opened a real acquisition war on the AAA level, with multiple billion-dollar deals following later in the year by other companies.
3.
CrazyLabs by Embracer Group -- I've tried to find some other acquisition not by Embracer Group, but basically all other video game acquisitions after Q1 have been at ridiculously high prices/multiples. CrazyLabs is one of the biggest hypercasual mobile publishers in the world. Along with Easybrain, who focuses on puzzle games, CrazyLabs is one of the two major pillars of Embracer's mobile strategy, which will become very important for the company. CrazyLabs invests a lot of talent acquisition from emerging markets, including India, which I feel is also important to grow the industry as a whole.
Publisher of the Year -
rewards the publisher that had the most successful year through its market share, games, services or overall health
1.
Capcom -- their three main products of the year, Monster Hunter Rise, Resident Evil: Village and Monster Hunter Stories 2, have all exceeded financial expectations and were met with much enthusiasm from both fans and critics.
2.
Coffee Stain -- originally a one-hit wonder, thanks to Goat Simulator, but Coffee Stain has made some very strategic investments into its own development studios and third-party indies, whose games they publish. While the first fruits could be reaped in 2019 and 2020, I want to highlight them this year, because 2021 was a year of continued success at great heights for them, thanks to the release of Valheim, and the continued performance of Satisfactory and Deep Rock Galactic (
which reached a new apex in January 2022).
3.
Outright Games -- this publisher of licensed kids games flies under the radar, but has grown tremendously since its establishment in late 2016. With the help of two new Paw Patrol games, Spirit: Lucky's Big Adventure, and seven other releases, as well as the establishment of their mobile game operations, these guys and girls are one to watch.
Worst Publisher of the Year -
goes to the publisher that had the biggest issues of the year through its market share, games, services or overall health
1.
Ubisoft -- this company is in a disastrous state and that has a big impact on its product output. Assassin's Creed Valhalla has been great, and Just Dance has continued to perform well, both critically and financially, but these don't make up for the number and size of flops. Far Cry, Riders Republic, Roller Champions, the decrease in players of some of their live service games such as
Rainbow Six Siege. Their free-to-play games are dead on arrival. Add the sexual harassment scandal and the NFT disaster, and it's clear that 2021 was not a great year, to say the least.
2.
Deep Silver -- they've released a couple big flops this year, particularly Chorus, King's Bounty II and Gods Will Fall.
3.
Square Enix -- they haven't manage to put Marvel's Avengers back to life, and they've released a worthy successor flop with Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Then add Balan Wonderworld, Outriders, NEO: The World Ends With You, and Life Is Strange: True Colors. Of course Square Enix has a number of successes to compensate for these disappointments, particularly Final Fantasy XIV. But for a company of this size, it's quite embarrassing that they had to stop the sale of the Endwalker expansion. It wasn't a bad year per se, financially, but between the lines, it could've been better.
Upcoming biggest Success of 2022 -
rewards the game/hardware/publisher/service (etc) expected to have the most success in 2022
1.
Elden Ring -- the hype is gigantic. Dark Souls III sold more than 10 million units, and this one could go even higher.
2.
UFL -- this is a free-to-play football simulation game (a FIFA rival), developed by the Eastern European start-up Strikerz Inc, coming to PC and consoles (but not Switch). The game looks cool, they're collaborating with a number of professional players and clubs, including Cristiano Ronaldo and Romelu Lukaku. You can check out their gameplay reveal showcase
here.
3.
Slime Rancher 2 -- the original Slime Rancher has been an indie success, which had sold more than 800k units in early access between January 2016 and May 2017 (
source), and has now sold more than 5 million copies as of January 2022 (
thread). The game is adorable and I have high hopes for the sequel, which is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S and Game Pass.
Flop of the Year -
goes to the game/hardware/service that disappointed the most
1.
Battlefield 2042 --
4.2M players first week despite free with EA Play, Steam CCU went below Battlefield V in 4 weeks and below Battlefield 1 in 6 weeks (
comparison). What a disappointment.
2.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition -- a lot of technical issues, rushed to release, which is so unnecessary for an asset care product.
3.
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey -- butched release, due to tons of technical issues, which has really hurt a successful live service product.
Sales of the Year -
goes to the game/hardware/service that was the most successful
1.
Oculus Quest 2 -- although we don't have official sales data (only
hints), analyst estimates, storefront revenue milestones, and the general buzz around this platform have convinced me that the Quest 2 has pulled VR to the next level. It may not be a console-level performance yet, but slowly but surely the VR market is getting there, and this performance of the Quest 2 in the past year is the first sign of that.
2.
Valheim -- more than 8 million units sold, peak CCU of more than 500k, what an indie success story. Not my Rookie of the Year, but definitely an incredible success!
3.
Forza Horizon 5 --
what else shall I say?
Honorable mention for Hitman 3, which managed to gross 3x its development costs within 2 months (
thread) and whose success is the starting point of a new era for IO Interactive after such a difficult time with Hitman 2016, being cast away by Square Enix, and disappointing sales performance of Hitman 2 (2018).
