In 2022, 3.2 billion players will help the global games market generate US$196.8 billion, up +2.1% year on year. By 2025, this figure will grow to 3.5 billion players helping the market generate US$225.7 billion, according to Newzoo’s “Global Games Market Report.”
The study revealed that the primary driver of this growth across the world is mobile, which will generate revenues of US$103.5 billion this year (53% of the market), representing growth of +5.1%. Meanwhile, PC accounts for 21% of the market and will grow +1.6% year on year to US$40.4 billion, while console will decline by - 2.2% year on year to US$52.9 billion - or 27% of the global market.
Regarding territories, North America’s games market will grow just +0.5% year on year to US$51.3 billion in 2022, while Europe’s will decline marginally (-0.03%) to US$34.1 billion. Strong mobile growth and, to a lesser extent, modest PC growth in these regions are the only factors offsetting a steep overall decline. Meanwhile, regions populated with mobile-first growth markets will see solid growth this year, with the Middle East and Africa growing +10.8% to US$7.1 billion and Latin America growing +6.9% to US$8.7 billion in 2022. Console’s downturn hardly impacted these mobile-first markets.
“Our forecasts show that the games market will continue to grow in the following years, reaching $225.7 billion in 2025, a +4.7% CAGR between 2020 and 2025. This signals our belief that the games market will continue growing healthily in a post-pandemic world, albeit at a slower pace than during the pandemic,” the report says.