In the past few years, we have only just begun to experience the capability of the video game industry. Each year has been a terrific milestone for video game industry in many many ways. However, when we think about games, we automatically think children. While it is true that almost 90% of children play video games, the average age of a gamer is 33 years old. In fact, projected demographics show that video game players of tomorrow are older adults. The video games are pervasive throughout our society and they are clearly here to stay as the total number of active gamers are estimated to be more than 2.3 billion in the world.
Multiple trends are reshaping the gaming industry. Games are evolving from paid products to free services as gamers are spreading their time and budget across many screens including smartphones, tablets, TVs, and personal computers (PC). In the recent years, mobile and online accessibility have created a truly global playground. Navigating through these changes requires both global and local insights on all market segments and business models. Newzoo has published a global games market report for 2018, which has provided some important figures that ultimately prove that consumers are driving the change.
The global games business grew to $35 billion in 2007, but it took more than 35 years. After the introduction of the iPhone, an extra $100 billion has been added to revenue, which will bring the total worldwide revenue to $137.9 billion in 2018. The accelerated growth of the gaming market has been driven by the uptake of smartphones as it has increased both revenues and engagement across all demographics. The gamers are able to enjoy their passion for gaming by actively participating according to their budget, lifestyle, location, interest, and mood.
Major takeaways from the 2018 report on gaming industry
According to the report, the mobile gaming (smartphone and tablet) is expected to grow at a rate of 25.5% to estimated $70 billion, which will account for more than half of all revenues. The global games market report for 2018 had five major takeaways.
- Gaming companies are including communities at the center in order to increase engagement of the gamer, viewer, and creator, providing opportunities to spend money. The gaming industry is becoming mainstream by focusing on the general consumer who not only actively participates but also audiences that view, create, and share the content.
- In-app advertising is becoming more important in emerging markets as many users don’t have the money to spend on mobile games. With global expansion of low-end and affordable smartphone manufacturers and government investment in internet infrastructure of emerging markets, the number of people with access to internet has increased drastically. The report states that nearly 95% of gamers play mobile games, which represents almost 2.3 billion gamers globally.
- The creation of complex mobile games proved the mobile skeptics wrong as mobile genres including multiplayer online battle arena games have made their way to mobile screens in the past year. For instance, the Tencent’s Honor of Kings game had 200 million monthly active users in China, which made it the highest grossing mobile game of 2017.
- The popularity of porting complex PC and console games to mobile screen is becoming mainstream among publishers. With this new tactic to attract attention of gamers, many games are being launched on mobile from popular franchises. For example, with Pokémon games launching on Nintendo Switch, the Pokémon Quest game is expected to be a very large release on mobile screens.
- Finally, the report compared the mobile revenues in 2018 across the top 100 countries. With a revenue of $37.9 billion in 2018, China was found to be the top country by game revenue. The United States had a revenue of $30.4 billion and Japan had $19.2 billion and they were found to be in second and third place, respectively.
Profiling All Game Enthusiasts
Gaming is the world’s favorite pastime when the playing and viewing hours are added together. The passion for game enthusiasts can be segmented into three main categories including, Playing, Viewing, and Owning.
The Global Games Market
The global games market can be divided into four main regions, including Asia-pacific, North America, Latin America, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The The Asia-Pacific region makes up 52% of global revenue with almost $71.4 billion this year. The North American region remains at the second spot with 23% of the global games market. As the uptake of the mobile gaming has been slower in Europe, Middle East & Africa, the growth has been lagging behind North America. Lastly, Latin America Latin will take 4% of the market this year with $5.0 billion in game revenues.
The mobile gaming claims more than half of all global game revenues as it has become the largest gaming segment in 2018. The smartphone and tablet gaming will account for 51% of global market with estimated revenue of $70.3 billion and total number of players around 2.2 billion. The console and PC gaming segment is the second largest segment with estimated revenue of $34.6 billion in 2018. The global games revenue is expected to grow to $180.1 billion by 2021.
Source: Newzoo Report
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I am officially a tech addict and enjoy providing my views on matters related to this industry. I am always interested in trying out new tech gadgets and I have owned multiple smartphones including the legendary HTC One, SGS2, Nexus 4, iPhone 4, 5S, 6S, XR, Note 9. You can ask me any tech related questions in the comment section or on twitter @hookedNav