Newzoo: This year, the global game industry will generate more than $200 billion in revenue, and players will break through $3 billion

Recently, market research institute Newzoo made a data forecast for the global game market in 2022, and the report pointed out that as the world begins to reopen, the revenue of the game market will continue to grow in 2022, and this figure will come to a record-breaking $2031 billion, an increase of 5.4% year-on-year.

In addition, the number of gamers will also exceed the 3 billion mark, and the number of players worldwide is expected to reach 3.09 billion.

Newzoo stressed that the future growth of the game market will be led by mobile games and console games, and PC games, although also maintaining growth, will be lower than consoles and mobile terminals.

Here's the full report compiled by GameLook:

The U.S. market is back in power

Before talking about the global market forecast, we would like to point out some notable regional markets – the U.S. game revenue will surpass China's $50.2 billion in 2022.

Such a prediction is not unreasonable: considering the Chinese government's strict control over the game industry, whether it is the version number factor or the control of the game time by the anti-addiction system for minors, the development of China's game industry will naturally be affected by these regulatory factors.

Still, Asia Pacific remains the largest gaming market in terms of revenue, but more mature gaming markets such as Europe and North America will also see strong growth, thanks to the boom in the region's console market.

Milestones in mobile game revenue

In 2022, the annual revenue of mobile games will exceed the $100 billion mark for the first time, up 5.1% year-on-year to $103.5 billion.

Although mobile will still show growth, its annual growth rate is significantly lower than in 2020 and 2021, and the reason is also very obvious - 2022 can not maintain the growth brought by the home dividend in previous years. That means the market share of mobile games will decline by one percentage point this year, from 52% in 2021 to 51%.

As a result, the most mature mobile gaming markets will not grow as much year-on-year in 2022 – for example, China will grow 2.8% year-on-year and Japan will grow 1.1% year-on-year. These mature markets rely on new game launches and innovative monetization strategies to increase revenue as player growth is minimal.

While new game blockbusters such as Apex Mobile (especially in Japan) and Diablo Immortal will help grow global revenues, user acquisition will remain a key challenge.

Privacy changes such as removing IDFA have made it harder for mobile games to effectively acquire and target players. While Apple's approach to privacy policy is more extreme than Google's, most publishers allocate UA budgets in a consolidated manner (rather than separate budgets for IOS and Android), so user acquisition is fully impacted.

In absolute revenue terms, the Asia-Pacific region remained the largest gaming market, maintaining significant growth, but China, Japan and South Korea all showed single-digit year-over-year growth.

So where is the growth of mobile coming from? Here we have to mention the emerging Southeast Asian market, which will also be the biggest contributor to the growth of mobile games in 2022, thanks to the improvement of the region's internet infrastructure, the adaptability of games to smart devices, and more payment options. It is worth mentioning that similar to Southeast Asia, there is also the gradually rising Latin American game market.

Console games became the main growth driver, with PC growth slightly slower

In the wake of mobile and cloud gaming, industry experts and analysts have been predicting the "demise of console games," but for now, the console gaming market is still active. Despite continued supply chain capacity constraints, we predict console games will generate $56.9 billion in revenue in 2022, up 8.4% year-over-year.

This growth has been driven by a number of factors, such as the continued emergence of first-party blockbusters such as Horizon: Desperate West, Pokémon: The Legend of Arcos, GT Racing, God of War, and highly anticipated third-party premium versions of games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Eldon's Ring of Law, and more.

Of course, factors such as console game performance support for more game live services, as well as Sony's improved strategy of subscribing to PlayStation Plus, will also bring growth.

PC games will grow 1.9 percent in 2022 to $41 billion, down from console games. The reasons for this are also obvious: PC game blockbusters are less in the spotlight than consoles; there is a lack of subscription ecosystems like Xbox Game Pass (although there is Game Pass on PC, it is not so closely related to the Xbox gaming ecosystem), PlayStation Plus and Nintendo Switch Online; and consumer demand for new computer accessories is lower than the demand for consoles.

As in previous years, browser-based games will decline as more and more players shift their gaming time and consumption to mobile devices, and as developers also prioritize development for mobile screens. While some mobile developers will also offer browser-based versions, this is not enough to offset the outflow of players from browser to mobile.

In addition, revenue from boxed PC games will increase 3.2% year-over-year to $38.7 billion, driven primarily by the largest western markets and emerging markets elsewhere.

From a regional perspective, the bulk of the growth of the European gaming market (6.3%) is attributable to a thriving PC market above the global average; however, the region's growth potential is limited in part by the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It is worth noting that China's PC game market will decline slightly year-on-year, and will accelerate the decline by 2024.

Global game market future performance forecast

The gaming market will continue to grow in the coming years, with it expected to reach $222.6 billion in 2024, with a compound annual growth rate of 5.6% (2020-2024).

The mobile game landscape will change most dramatically, with more and more talented game studios continuing to adapt to the new privacy policy norm, while they will also pioneer new monetization strategies, while some console and PC game-based companies will introduce their well-known masterpieces to mobile devices, and mobile games themselves will become more complex and realistic, which will also attract console and PC gamers.

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