NEWS

Video games market to exceed $200 billion by 2023, says latest Juniper Research

Published on: 8th September 2020

The video games industry is on track to exceed $200 billion in value by 2023, according to the latest report from the global hi-tech communications analyst Juniper Research, growing from an expected $155 billion in 2020. The research company suggests that the growth will be lead over the next three years, by mobile and cloud gaming.

In its new report, Video Games: Industry Trends, Monetisation Strategies and Market Size 2020 – 2025, Juniper notes that the popularity of free-to-play games like Fortnite and Call of Duty Mobile is intensifying the move to in-game monetisation, and that cloud gaming and other video game subscriptions will grow at an average rate of nine per cent per year.

The industry is to see the projected growth despite the expected five per cent decline in purchase revenues over the next three year.

“At current gaming subscription prices, it will take an average of ten month of a subscription p[ayment to cover the retail cost of a single AAA game,” said co-author on the research paper, James Moar. “The value of these platforms lies in keeping players within an ecosystem, ensuring that revenue across multiple games is captured by a single platform.”

The research goes on to note that, thanks to the increase in gamers signing up to subscription services such as EA Access, Google Stadia, and Xbox Gamepass, as well as buying fewer standalone games, only mobile games will see a net increase in game installs between 2020 and 2023. It also suggests that 99 per cent of mobile game downloads in the next three years will be free-to-play.

Juniper anticipates that less than 50 per cent of PC game installs over the period will be paid for. However, these games will be the most lucrative segment for in-game purchases, approaching $32 billion in 2023. Mobile games will have more purchases, but higher value game expansion purchases will keep PC in-game revenue growth strong. Smartphone in-app revenue will grow at an average of eight per cent over the forecast period, as smartphone gaming in emerging markets grows.

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