Shooter games were once seen as the exclusive territory of hardcore North American players. Today, demand from emerging markets is quietly rewriting the rules. According to Steam data, monthly active users, or MAU, for the leading FPS title CS2&GO in Russia have long far exceeded those in the United States, while markets around the world are also growing rapidly. Shooter fans worldwide are beginning to seek PC gaming experiences on a par with those in Europe and North America.
In this seemingly saturated market, major titles such as PUBG and VALORANT hold substantial shares of the European and North American markets. Yet games targeting emerging markets, including NetEase Games' Marvel Rivals and FragPunk, have still secured places in global PC FPS rankings. This suggests that promising market segments remain even in a crowded field.
Russia Has More Than Twice the US MAU as the Shooter Market Map Changes
Conventional wisdom has long held that the United States dominates PC shooter activity and revenue. However, the latest Steam data shows a pronounced shift toward a more geographically diverse global player base.
For Chinese game companies, shooters rank among the top three categories in both the domestic and overseas markets and are showing potential for growth on both fronts in mobile gaming. Domestically, shooters remain a top-three category with a 13.89% revenue share. Last year, NetEase's Lost Light also set an example for creative shooter collaborations through several highly successful crossover livestreams. Overseas, shooters have carved out a 10.4% share despite the dominance of SLGs. This coordinated approach, using the domestic market to experiment with gameplay and overseas markets to unlock incremental growth, demonstrates the genre's resilience through iteration in mature markets. It also suggests that shooters may become a new foundation for Chinese game companies' international expansion after SLGs.
Consider CS2&GO, a long-standing FPS favorite. The article reports that the United States remains in first place with an average of 852,000 monthly active players, while emerging markets such as Russia, Brazil, and Türkiye are growing rapidly. Russia's MAU surged 187% year over year, Türkiye's user base doubled in one year, and Brazil's MAU exceeded 2.4 million. The article also reports Russia's MAU at 4.596 million, nearly twice the United States' 2.675 million.
A similar pattern is becoming clearer in PUBG, where traditional markets face rising competition from emerging ones. The United States maintained its lead with 1.25 million MAU in January 2025, while Russia, Türkiye, and Brazil experienced explosive growth. Russia's MAU rose 270% year over year, Türkiye's user base grew fivefold in one year, and Brazil passed 400,000. Behind this shift, emerging markets are reshaping global gaming through mobile penetration, localized operations, and low-cost esports ecosystems.
This development challenges the United States' dominant position in the FPS genre and reveals the structural potential of regional markets worldwide. Political factors and cultural preferences jointly shape this migration.
Take Russia and Brazil, both among PUBG's top three markets for global revenue in 2024. Against the backdrop of Western sanctions and restricted game services, Russian players have turned to established classics such as CS:GO and the limited selection of newer shooters available to them. Local independent studios have also gained ground, creating a distinctive alternative ecosystem alongside the global market.
Brazil may first bring to mind a football-loving nation's enthusiasm for competitive sports. As Latin America's largest esports market, it is also attracting global attention through its strength in FPS games. In recent years, Brazilian teams have won top championships in CS:GO, VALORANT, and Rainbow Six, making Brazil the first country to complete a grand slam across these bomb-defusal titles. Data shows that Brazilian esports viewers watch an average of 7.8 hours per week, 53.7% have attended events in person, and the esports population accounts for 35%, with user engagement far exceeding that of European and North American markets. Although the economy is still developing, strong player participation and active shooter communities are making Brazil strategically important to publishers expanding globally.
The analysis above shows that the shooter market has become highly segmented. Regional opportunities are emerging across the world, while different product types meet distinct needs:
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Battle royale games have swept global markets through last-player-standing mechanics.
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Hero shooters attract broader audiences through combinations of character abilities.
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Hardcore military simulations build strong loyalty within niche communities.
Player needs, cultural preferences, and content consumption habits vary considerably across these segments. In this environment, the broad-brush approach of using one set of creatives worldwide no longer works. Youdao Ads' successful campaigns for shooters such as Marvel Rivals and the recently launched FragPunk demonstrate a new approach: tailoring content marketing ecosystems to each segment's characteristics and local user preferences.
Build a Player Content Ecosystem for Growth Across Audience Segments
01 Preparation through cultural relevance and tailored audience engagement
Find what resonates in the content. Build a tailored, multifaceted communications model based on each market's cultural characteristics, using specialized content to reach core player communities. For Japan, this means emphasizing localized character aesthetics, such as Japanese-inspired design elements. In Europe and North America, it means prioritizing narrative tension and collaborations with established IPs, using cultural references both to make the content easier to understand and to create emotional connections.
Design the distribution path. Youdao Ads uses a tailored market-entry approach, selecting creators who combine strong influence with deep relevance to each market. It maintains ongoing communication with creators, updates requirements as they change, and builds trust. It also designs video concepts and livestream scripts around local player behavior, such as Japanese users' preference for short, punchy character showcases and Latin American users' enthusiasm for competitive content. Partnership models including traffic-based revenue sharing and creative tool support help cultural elements and creator influence reinforce one another.
Image source: YouTube
02 Breakthrough through leading creators and customized content
Drawing on the strongly social nature of shooter games, leading streamers and professional players help attract audiences from public platforms. In-depth content partnerships, including customized tournaments and exclusive items, convert KOLs' established fan communities into new game users. The entertainment value of competitive content, such as highlight compilations, also creates highly shareable moments.
Youdao Ads also builds a centralized content repurposing operation, breaking long livestreams into short videos adapted to different platforms. Algorithmic recommendations bring quality content to broader entertainment audiences, expanding distribution and converting viewing into downloads.
Image source: YouTube
03 Long term growth through organic advocacy
Building a creator ecosystem supports user retention and organic sharing through a positive cycle of creative incentives, data-based selection, and traffic support:
At the initial stage, benefit exchanges and creator funds encourage users to produce content.
Conversion rates, video completion rates, and other metrics identify high-value creators for additional resources. Official traffic support then amplifies high-quality content.
A trend-response mechanism also monitors popular player-created mods and fan works in real time, quickly following up with themed content collections and toolkits. This turns user creativity into a sustained content supply. Light-touch operations around holiday Easter eggs and cultural trends keep the product fresh and help organic traffic build momentum.
Player Co Creation Changes How Game Content Drives Growth
From CS2&GO's rapid growth in Eastern Europe to PUBG's gains in Brazil, shooter games are demonstrating through data that true globalization requires adapting to different audiences rather than simply copying and pasting.
As Turkish players celebrate Ramadan modes and Russian teams energize local audiences through domestic tournaments, the creator ecosystem and cultural customization approach validated in China is driving a new wave of content innovation globally. Youdao Ads' practical experience shows that companies need both broad reach in established markets and precise, customized operations to unlock new opportunities. Matching regional culture and content consumption habits helps every creative idea address the core needs of its target audience.
References and data sources
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NetEase YouShu BI, 2025.
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The Brazilian Esports Market Where Enthusiasm Meets Uncertainty, 36Kr Global, 2023. 36Kr Global