Global Gaming Industry worth over $100 Billion By 2017

The prediction comes from a new Global Games Investment Review by Digi-Capital, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz. According to the report, mobile and online gaming will account for about 60 percent of the software market share, primarily led by strong growth in Europe and Asia.

Looking through the firm’s Executive Summary revealed a few of these highlights:

• Mobile and Asia drove games M&A [Merger and Acquisitions] to $5.6b in 2013

• 9 out of 10 games M&As of 2013 had Asian buyers

• 13 out of 15 games IPOs [Initial Public Offerings] in 2011–2013 were by Chinese, Japanese or South Korean companies

• Mobile games and tech/gamification dominated investment in 2013

• Asian OTT [Over-the-Top] messaging apps beginning to disrupt mobile games in domestic markets – Kakao Talk, WeChat and LINE taking significant share

• 8th console generation (PS4, Xbox One, Wii U) beginning to address long term decline

I am by no means qualified to financially assess this information but it’s always interesting to look at the games industry from a different perspective and see what affects it – the charts are especially fascinating.

For instance, the average revenue per user for games with PvP and PvE shot up 13 times, despite the figure for paying users only increasing by 1.07 times. How will game design adapt to sustain interest and money from the ‘whales’? Or will companies attempt to break into the non-paying market by getting players past that all-important first transaction?

And then there’s the console market and AAA publishers to mull over as they continue broadening their appeal, while at the same time keeping the core market pleased. Blizzard’s Hearthstone fits the bill, though their StarCraft II and Diablo III communities are a little up-in-arms lately.

As Tim Merel, Managing Director of Digi-Capital puts it: “Where 2013 was a year of transition, we anticipate 2014 to be a year of both growth and disruption for the games market.”

Source: Digi-Capital
Via: GamesIndusty.biz