With the world of gaming innovating at a break-neck pace, it’s easy to miss out on a range of new trends that could really enhance your business practices. From the increased use of mobile gaming to new merging markets and different payment models, we’ve done the work for you.
The gaming industry is doing very well. The pandemic and social isolation as the reason being, of course. One would think that after getting back to normal, this would change. According to PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2022–26, the global gaming industry’s expansion is expected to make it worth $321 billion by 2026.
The PwC report further predicts that the games market will expand fastest in Turkey, with an average annual growth of 24.1% between 2021 and 2026. It will be followed by Pakistan, with an expansion of 21.9%, and India, at 18.3%. Nevertheless, Asia-Pacific remains the biggest region by revenue by a massive margin. China and the U.S. dominated the market in 2021, accounting for nearly half of gaming and esports revenue. However, the future growth may come as a general rule from less affluent countries with growing populations.
Mobile phones will stay the most popular gaming device by a huge margin; there will be more than 150 million mobile gamers in the US this year, amounting to over 89% of all digital gamers. Other gaming platforms are laptops and PC devices. An October 2022 survey found that 29% of North American gamers played video games on a desktop or laptop.
With the increase in users of video games and related platforms, there is an opportunity for mobile developers and operators to generate business through paid subscriptions or in-game payments. The key is to simplify contactless transactions and make them secure and accessible for consumers. Almost all of the big players in the video game business now offer their games through cloud-based subscription services, including Microsoft, Sony, Google, Nvidia, Tencent, and Amazon. Under this model, there’s less need for gamers to buy and use new consoles. According to Forbes, several of the biggest creators of games (such as Square Enix and Ubisoft) intend to build non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into their games as a way of letting players win, earn, and trade unique in-game items. In 2022, it’s likely that we will start to see some of these plans come to reality.
And yes, virtual reality is still on the rise and has been in greater usage long before it became fashionable amongst other industries.