Analysts predict that the increasing proliferation of mobile gaming will help push videogame industry revenues up past $100 billion.
The videogame industry is worth a lot of money. This isn’t new information, of course. Games have been growing as an entertainment medium for years now and have long since eclipsed other entertainment mediums in terms of overall annual revenues. That being the case however, if recent predictions are true gaming is going to continue its ascension for some years to come.
In fact, according to Digi-Capital’s latest Global Games Investment Review, the industry is on a course to be worth more than $100 billion by the year 2017. This titanic figure is attributed mainly to the assumption that mobile gaming, a powerful area of growth already today, will continue expanding until it makes up about 60 percent of the industry’s market share in 2017. If the growth of mobile is consistent with these predictions it could, in turn, lead to even more rampant expansion in Asia where mobile and online gaming are king. “Asia is becoming the biggest growth driver of economic value in mobile/online games, with the best games companies’ revenue growth and profit margins being the envy of foreign competitors,” said Tim Merel, managing director at Digi-Capital.
Digi-Capital also expects consoles to take back some of their slipping market share in the years to come, though not without some doubts. “The 8th generation console cycle is beginning to address the decline of recent years, but questions remain about potential new installed bases, transition from the 7th generation and mobile cannibalization,” said Merel. All in all, the coming years should at least be interesting times for the industry as revenue models expand but also shift and change thanks to new audiences, preferences and innovations in gaming itself.
Source: GamesIndustry International
