Newzoo recently published its latest games market analysis which forecasted the global games market generating revenues of $159 Billion in 2020, at a respectable %9.3 growth year to year. Revenues from all platforms were taken into consideration including, mobile, PC, and console. COVID-19 has affected almost everyone on the planet, it has changed our lifestyle forcing us indoors which has notably been a key contributor to the growth increase in 2020.
Mobile gaming has seen the lions share of the increase growing in total by 13.3% in 2020. Key growth factors include:
- Smartphone accessibility
- Closure of public gaming facilities like Gameworks, gaming cafes, etc
- Cost of development
Mobile gaming is expected to grow even more rapidly in the next few years. Newzoo projects 2.6 billion mobile gamers in 2020 of which only 38% pay for games.
Console and PC gaming still continue to grow in 2020 while console itself grew 6.8% generating $42.2 billion with over 729 million players.
Delays due to COVID-19 have created delays in the physical distribution of console games and hardware and could continue past Q3. Q2 has already seen delays on PlayStation 4 exclusives like The Last of Us 2 and Ghost Tsushima. Switch ports like The Outer Worlds and The Wonderful 101: Remastered have also been delayed. Delays might also affect the release of the next-gen consoles Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 which could have a severe impact on generated revenue this year. Since 2018 the console market growth has subsided significantly.
PC gaming brings up the rear piloted by 1.3 billion players but only showing a 4.8% growth at $36 billion in 2020. I was expecting to see a larger growth percentage due to the COVID-19 pandemic and PC gaming being almost all digital downloads but I was wrong. Game development delays are also affecting PC titles like the Death Stranding port and delays are projected to continue into Q3.
Newzoo projects gaming industry generated revenues will exceed $200 billion by the end of 2023 with an 8.3% growth rate. Consoles will see an increase in growth due to the release of the next-gen consoles Xbox One Series X and PlayStation 5. Mobile, however, will continue to reap the lions share of growth overall.salenext
