The game market is booming, it is expected to surpass traditional sports in the next 3-4 years

This year, the global gaming market generated $116 billion in profits from game software, up 10.7% from 2016. This is $7.1 billion higher than the initial prediction on Newzoo earlier this year ($108.9 billion). .

Mobile gaming earnings for 2017 also outperformed expectations, from $46.1 to $50.4 billion. The PC game market also changed, from $29.4 billion to $32.3 billion. However, console games fell short of initial projections of $33.3 billion, but the market is still growing year-over-year at a rate of 3.7%. If looking at the region, this change is mainly due to income sources from China and Japan. The Chinese game market is expected to reach $32.5 billion by the end of the year, while Japan will reach $14 billion

The increase in the vast majority of markets is the result of tracking and analyzing gaming earnings generated and reported by more than 100 public companies. The analysis also shows stability in the market, with the top grossing companies still capturing the majority of the global gaming market share. Public companies represent more than 80% of global income this year, up about 75% from 2016.

10 years ago, the introduction of the iPhone revolutionized the industry. Now, we are witnessing the new growth driven by games and their influence on media and entertainment.

Newzoo predicts that the global games market will continue to grow year-on-year during 2016-2020 by +8.2% to reach $143.5 billion in earnings in 2020. Additionally, more than half of the income will come from mobile devices. motion.

Looking at console, PC, and mobile titles, it’s clear that professional competitive games including team competition, ranked, and streaming are getting bigger and bigger. In mobile, this is not only true in China and the rest of Asia, but also in the West, where the mobile pro market is leading the earnings table. This gives Chinese publishers more confidence to bring their games to Western countries. Tencent’s Arena of Valor is a prime example. The proliferation of battle royale titles, boosted by the success of PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUND on PC, also helped develop the mobile game market in the West. At the same time, esport also entered the mature stage. The next 2 years are extremely important to see how the esports market will develop into a billion dollar industry. Key factors are the success of regional tournaments and the way brands approach players, regulatory policies, new competition and competition formats, revenue from game content sales, profitability of teams and influence of neighboring industries including traditional media, entertainment, telecommunications and sports companies. Depending on the importance of these factors in the next 1 or 2 years, esports could grow dramatically and reach $2.4 billion by 2020 if the situation is positive, nearly $1 billion higher than its current value of $1.5 billion.

In the past, global game market (software) market earnings were often compared with ticket sales in theaters globally. But this year, the game has generated more than three times the profit of 2016’s $38.6 billion in ticket sales, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. As gaming continues to combine traditional media and entertainment, new comparison tables can be created. The gaming market can be compared to the global sports industry, which is predicted to be in the $130 to $150 billion range. This figure includes royalties, sponsorships, accessory sales, and ticket sales. Given the growth rates in these two markets, gaming income will surpass that of the sports industry in just the next three or four years. If we include the income from selling console hardware (about $10 billion this year) and PC hardware and components (about $23 billion in total), the gaming market is already bigger than sports. Looking to the future, games are already considered sports, or esports, and it will continue to add profits to the booming gaming economy.

Source: Newzoo