The Gaming Industry – No Longer A Child’s Play
We are introducing a new series of articles: the Growing Industries series. This series will include articles focused on industries that have experienced continuous growth in previous years to give you valuable insights and inspiration.
Ready Player One is set in 2045 with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse, where people are hooked on playing games. Although the movie’s story takes place 26 years in the future, today’s state of play (pun intended) makes it possible.
The gaming industry – no longer a child’s play
If the numbers show anything is that the gaming industry is no longer a child’s play; in fact, it’s a game for the big boys.
This article presents the numbers that illustrate the state of the industry in 2018.
Global games market
source: gamesindustry.biz
The global games market is valued at $134.9B with a 10%YoY.
- Mobile $63B +12%YoY
- Smartphone games $50B +14%YoY
- Console $38 +15%YoY
- PC $33B +3%YoY
- Boxed & downloaded PC games $29B +6%YoY
- Tablet games $13B +7%YoY
- Browser PC games $4B -14%YoY
Mobile games make out 47% of the total market value with console games at 28% and PC games at 25%.
source: filmora.wondershare.com
Top 3 countries by revenues
China $32M
USA $25M
Japan $14M
source: filmora.wondershare.com
Top 3 games developer companies by revenues
Tencent $12M
Sony $6M
Activision Blizzard $5M
source: filmora.wondershare.com
No of gamers worldwide
Worldwide there are 2 billion gamers half of whom come from the Asia-Pacific region.
54% are men
46% are women
63% of all gamers in 2018, are from 21 to 50 years of age
Women prefer puzzles and action/adventure games.
Men prefer action/adventure, shooter and strategy games.
Top 3 games awarding prize money
Dota 2 – $137M, 2359 players and 890 tournaments
Counter-strike – global offensive $52M, 9366 players and 3139 tournaments
League of Legends – $51M, 5372 players and 2020 tournaments
Top 3 earning pro gamers
Kuro Takhasomi $3.56M
Amer Barqawi $3.14M
Saahil Arora $2.95M
Top 3 Best-Selling Games
FIFA 19 (Electronic Arts) – 4,980,635 units
God of War (Sony Interactive Entertainment) – 5,026,257 units
Spider-Man (Sony Interactive Entertainment) – 5,177,202 units
source: gamecrate.com
Expert Statement
Challenge is the gaming industry
Working in gaming industry is every kid’s dream, I do hear this a lot. Nothing further from the truth, or maybe not?
When you are looking at the figures, you realize that gaming is way bigger than the movie industry and the music industry put together. We’re talking about +130Bn $ in 2018 alone.
Mobile gaming has 51% of the pie according to Newzoo and registered +25% increase compared with 2017. So yes, no pressure whatsoever.
When you know that +60% of the smartphone owners are downloading at least one game within a week of the acquisition and when mobile games account for 40% of the time spent on smartphones, only now you begin to realize the challenges the industry is facing.
The competition has grown exponentially and that led to huge volume of free content. The players’ expectations are rising and this brings both development costs and user acquisition costs to the next level. The domino effect continues and if we add in the equation the dynamics of technology development we come up with and overwhelming conclusion:
Once you’re in you need to keep playing !Adrian Stanciu
Head of Sales and Advertising for South Central Europe – Gameloft
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sources:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-12-17-gamesindustry-biz-presents-the-year-in-numbers-2018
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/12/04/the-best-selling-video-games-of-2018/6/
https://filmora.wondershare.com/infographic/video-game-trends-and-stats.html
