Benefiting from the new coronavirus epidemic, as well as the next generation of hosts, the global game industry revenue is expected to reach $159.3 billion in 2020, up 9.3% year-on-year, according to a report recently released by game market research firm Newzoo.
Almost half of all consumer gaming spending comes from China and the United States; in addition, it is predicted that this revenue will exceed $200 billion by the end of 2023.
Newzoo said in its research report that, as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, gaming has become one of the most popular pastimes for people to spend time at home, and all game genres have seen an increase in user engagement and revenue.
The impact on mobile gaming has been most pronounced, with mobile gaming revenues expected to reach $77.2 billion in 2020, up 13.3% year-on-year, and Newzoo attributes the most significant growth momentum to the following three points.
1. A lower barrier to entry for mobile games.
2. Many PC Cafes were forced to close down due to the epidemic, and mobile gaming became its replacement.
3. The development process of mobile game is less complicated.
In addition to mobile end games, console and PC games are also showing a healthy growth trend.
According to Newzoo's research, console gaming revenue will reach $45.2 billion in 2020, up 6.8% year-on-year, with a total of 729 million players in the world.
While the COVID-19 epidemic has affected host games with an increase in user engagement and revenue, it has also had a negative impact.
The physical distribution of mainframe games and the company's collaborative work are very important parts, and the development of a large number of game titles has been affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, with The Last Survivor 2, Ghosts of Tsushima, and other titles announced for postponement for the next generation of mainframe games for the foreseeable future.
In addition, PC platform gaming revenue is expected to reach $36.9 billion in 2020, up 4.8% year-on-year, driven by 1.3 billion players worldwide.
However, unlike host platforms, the games with the most revenue on the PC platform tend to have been around for more than 3 years, and some have even been around for 10 years, with very few new games bringing in significant revenue.
And, while the physical version has had a very limited impact due to the PC platform's more popular digital game service, new games have also appeared on the platform due to the epidemic's delays.
