One of the great legs-up available to TV and film creators is the use of existing IP, and many of todays most-popular adaptations are coming from video games. Thats not necessarily brand new, but what were just now beginning to understand is the powerful two-way relationship between original material and a successful conversion as the latest study from Ampere Analysis puts it, Hit TV adaptations of video games are proving to be rocket fuel for player numbers.

These screen (TV and film) adaptations are driving an average player growth of nearly 140 percent, the analysts found, which is far higher than game-based activations. Isolating just the television adaptations, that average number grows to +203 percent. Movies still work, but at a lower average rate of +48 percent. To reiterate, these are averages. The Fallout streaming series on Amazon Prime Video drove the game franchises monthly active users (MAUs) up 490 percent; compare that with the Fallout DLC (downloadable content) updates in June and December 2023, which increased its MAUs by just 17 percent on average. With the streaming series provided the best-possible backwards-compatible (to steal a gaming phrase) marketing, a whopping 80 percent of the 14 million newly activated Fallout players were playing the game(s) for the first time.

HBOs The Last of Us has brought in more than four million new players to the game across its two seasons of TV. The very popular TV show increased franchise engagement by an average of 150 percent, Ampere found. Meanwhile, the remastered release ofThe Last of UsPart IIon PS5 (PlayStation 5) and the addition ofThe Last of UsPart Ito the PlayStation Plus (PS+) grew monthly players by 70 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

OK, you may be saying, but thats The Last of Us a huge TV hit. Well, Netflixs anime adaptation of the game series Devil May Cryis certainly not a huge hit. At its peak, the streaming cartoon ranked 58th among the most-popular TV shows in April. Still, the series sent back a 358 percent increase in players vs. March. That is an eye-popping number, but to be clear, the Devil May Cry games were not exactly topping the charts in terms of raw player numbers in recent years.

For the study, Ampere Analysis measured the the impact of TV shows Devil May Cry, Fallout, Halo, The Last of Us and Twisted Metal. For film, Borderlands, Five Nights at Freddys, Gran Turismo, Minecraft and Until Dawn were captured in the averages. Ampere provides data and analytics to the global entertainment industry.

Of course, we have to talk about Minecraft, an insanely popular game that birthed an insanely popular movie. Though Minecraft already accounted for about one or two percent of the monthly total game play time across Xbox, PlayStation and Steam from January to March 2025, its MAUs still jumped 30 percent with Aprils release of A Minecraft Movie in theaters. Thirty percent is a big number when youre starting with very big numbers it is sort of the opposite of the Devil May Cry-delta skew.

Imagine what the coming Call of Duty movie could do for the already wildly popular Call of Duty games? Ampere analyst Ricardo Parsons is.

Media adaptations are superchargers for the player bases of gaming franchises. They attract new audiences at scale, from first-time players diving intoFalloutswasteland to lapsed gamers returning to Minecraft, Parsons said. And unlike DLC or remasters, hit adaptations showcase these stories to a wider audience, extending their reach. With adaptations ofCall of Duty, Life is Strange,andDark Deceptionall announced recently, Ampere expects this trend to continue creating win-wins for publishers seeking new players and studios hungry for ready-made fanbases.