The previous 18 months have been a interval of huge progress for the worldwide video games market. In 2020, revenues grew +23% 12 months on 12 months, the market’s highest progress charge in over a decade. However what does the longer term maintain for our trade? To search out out, Google requested us to conduct in depth market and client analysis in 16 nations throughout 4 international areas.
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The result’s 5 insightful stories you can preview and obtain right here at no cost. On this article, we’ll current some high-level findings from the analysis.
The patron knowledge on this article relies on a survey with 16,900 respondents throughout North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, The Center East, and Africa. Be taught extra in regards to the methodology on web page 19 of the Past Gaming report.
New & Veteran Gamers Alike Contributed to 2020’s Exceptional Progress
We talked about that final 12 months’s video games market progress was unprecedented. Our analysis with Google means that veteran gamers, who have been taking part in earlier than February 2020, drove a lot of this progress.
As you may anticipate, the group determined to make use of their newfound free time to play extra. Of all of the avid gamers we interviewed, 42% have been veteran avid gamers who performed extra between February 2020 and Might 2021 than earlier than, whereas 30% have been veterans who performed across the identical quantity.
Engagement trickles into spending, and 78% of veteran avid gamers spend cash on video games. The extra they play, the extra possible they’re to spend. Nonetheless, the pandemic introduced many new and returning gamers (again) to the market.
For this analysis, we outline new avid gamers as those that performed for the primary time between February 2020 and Might 2021. Returning gamers stopped taking part in (at the very least as soon as) earlier than February 2020 however began taking part in once more between February 2020 and Might 2021.
The months between February 2020 and Might 2021 additionally accelerated a extra equal participant gender break up. Girls accounted for 53% of recent and returning avid gamers vs. 46% of veteran avid gamers. Be taught extra about gamer demographics within the full report.
Will Gaming’s Pandemic-Pushed Engagement Enhance Proceed?
As we strategy the top of 2021, the time is true to look ahead and think about how this progress will ripple into the market’s future.
Along with Google, we got down to uncover the solutions within the Past 2021: The place Does Gaming Go Subsequent report.
Realizing which avid gamers will stick round is significant for publishers, manufacturers, and different stakeholders as we transfer into the longer term. Roughly 75% of avid gamers throughout cellular, console, and PC anticipate to keep up and even improve their gaming exercise going ahead.
Round 70% of recent and returning avid gamers plan to proceed taking part in on the identical or a better stage after the pandemic. Merely put: a lot of the engagement sparked by the pandemic will stick.
The engagement spike goes past taking part in too, with virtually a 3rd of gamers saying they anticipate to look at extra game-related streams and esports within the coming years.
Some gamers, together with 26% of recent & returning gamers and 18% of veterans, are planning to scale back their gaming. Nonetheless, we anticipate to see a internet improve in engagement total.
In search of extra knowledge on new, returning, and veteran avid gamers? Go to the Google for Video games web site, which additionally has the information break up by gamers 4 areas:
- North America: United States
- Latin America: Brazil and Mexico
- Europe, Center East & Africa: Finland, Israel, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the UK
- Asia-Pacific: Mainland China, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam
The Pandemic’s Influence on Sport Developments
The video games market has at all times moved rapidly with progressive new developments. The pandemic has accelerated many of those tendencies whereas inflicting non permanent setbacks for others. Some developments continued their pure trajectory.
To outline the impression of gaming’s largest tendencies, we break up them into three classes for the analysis:
Novel gaming tendencies (new and evolving methods gamers have interaction with video games):
- Gaming persevering with to develop as a social platform
- The emergence of themetaverse
- Gamers adopting and accepting sport subscriptions en masse
Accelerated gaming tendencies (pre-existing tendencies accelerated by the pandemic):
- The rise ofstreaming as game-related social engagement
- Blurring strains between sport platforms like PC, console & cellular
- Cloud gamingand its growing client adoption
Non permanent setbacks (the pandemic’s challenges resulting in alternatives and resilience):
- A discount in spending on core AAA video gameson console and PC, inflicting publishers to rethink a few of their retention and monetization methods
- Sport improvement delays, inflicting builders to rethink their improvement practices (do business from home).
- Provide constraints, inflicting producers to rethink their provide chains and partnerships.
Get Even Extra Particulars About Gaming’s Brilliant Future
If there’s one thread uniting all areas and kinds of gamers, it’s the next: engagement past taking part in will drive loads of future video games market progress.
In-game concert events, live-streamed content material, esports, id exploration, or just hanging out with buddies in sport worlds can be integral to gaming’s future. That’s to not say extra conventional sport experiences received’t have their place.
The continued success of PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox spotlight that core gaming experiences stay a vital a part of the enjoyable for a whole lot of thousands and thousands of gamers. And these experiences are more and more discovering a house on cellular.
One factor is certain: the video games market is big, and it’ll solely get larger.
