The Top 25 publicly-traded games companies earned $50bn in the first half of 2018, according to a report from Newzoo.

That's an increase of 12 per cent year-on-year, but the firm says that this is the lowest growth level of growth seen in the first half of a year since 2014.

Newzoo reports that the Top Ten companies saw an average rise of 16 per cent year-on-year in earnings; the Top Five witnessed a 23 per cent rise.

Of the Top 25 companies, just 13 saw double-digital growth with another six experiencing a double-digital decline in earnings.

Unsurprisingly, Tencent remains the world's largest publicly-traded video games company, earning $10.2bn in the first half of 2018. That's an increase of 20 per cent year-on-year, driven by a strong Q1. For that period, the company saw a 33 per cent growth, a figure that dipped to seven per cent in Q2.

Due to some changes to the way China's regulators approach video games and smart phones, this figure will likely decrease.

Platform holders Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo exceeded Newzoo's expectations, all reporting growth of higher than 20 per cent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, third parties EA and Take-Two saw lower-than-anticipated earnings due to a lack of releases that this point in the year. Given Red Dead Redemption 2's early success, no doubt that issue will remedy itself for Take-Two.

Meanwhile, as reported earlier by Newzoo, the mobile market is struggling somewhat.