Adam Kos For decades, the video game market was dominated by either purpose-built consoles or rather cumbersome computers. From the early days of Atari and Commodore to the modern era of Microsoft and Ryzen, most video games were then played at home. But then came Apple and its iPhone, the concept of which was copied by other manufacturers, and the face of gaming changed considerably. With more than 6 billion people owning a smartphone today, it's no wonder that mobile gaming now accounts for more than 52% of the market and will bring in over $2021 billion in revenue by 90.
Tato the numbers come from the report, published by gaming industry analytics company Newzoo. She points out that the mobile gaming market is now not only larger than the console and PC market combined, but that it is also the fastest growing segment of the market. But the gaming market as a whole is still growing, meaning that mobile gaming is not only more popular than ever, but has actually been driving the entire industry forward since 2010.
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The trend is clear
The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the lion's share of $93,2 billion in sales, with China alone accounting for more than $30 billion, the US $15 billion and Japan just under $14 billion. Europe accounts for only 10%, accounting for $9,3 billion in sales. It is also worth noting that the largest additions are coming from emerging economies in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Although these regions account for less than 10% of the total mobile gaming market, they are showing the fastest growth, which is expected to continue in the next few years.
As the number of smartphone owners is expected to continue to grow (expected to exceed 2024 billion by 7), and taking into account the expansion of high-speed networks around the world, it is evident that it will continue to grow. And of course, perhaps to the chagrin of all classic players. Developer studios can see a clear potential in mobile gaming and can slowly redirect their activity to mobile platforms.
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A bittersweet future?
So it is not completely out of the question that everything will turn around. Today we are trying to launch AAA games on mobile through streaming services that will give us exclusive access to content exclusively available on PCs and consoles. But if the developers change over time, we might need these streaming platforms for our computers so that we can enjoy all those great titles on them as well. It is, of course, a very bold vision, but its realization is not entirely out of the question.
If developers stop seeing the point of developing titles for "mature" platforms because they won't bring them a proper profit, they will shift all their efforts to mobile users and PC and console games will simply stop being released. Indeed, the report shows that PC gaming revenue fell by 0,8%, laptop gaming fell by 18,2%, and consoles fell by a rather unimpressive 6,6%.
