There will be 3.2 billion gamers in 2022, but revenue is set to fall for first time in...

[midian182]

In a nutshell: If you're old enough to remember when gaming was considered more of a niche pastime, especially among those over the age of sixteen, it might bring a smile to your face to know that 3.2 billion people, almost half the world's population, will play games this year. They'll spend a combined total of $184.4 billion on their hobby, and while that is down slightly compared to last year, it's the result of the pandemic-induced gaming boom of 2020/21.

Newzoo's latest Global Games Market Report shows that the number of people playing games around the world is up 4.6% this year. That's especially impressive given how more people were gaming during the lockdowns when stay-at-home entertainment, such as video games and streaming, exploded. Not only were more people trying games for the first time, but lapsed players were also returning.

The Middle East & Africa saw the largest jump in players, up 8.2% to 488 million this year, followed by Latin America with 4.8%. North America saw the smallest rise (2.6%).

The pandemic also saw a huge jump in games revenue—growth between 2020 and 2022 was $43 billion more than Newzoo predicted. Unlike player numbers, that hasn't been sustained post-lockdown, with the $184 billion figure down -4.3% YoY; the first decline in 15 years. However, it's important to note that gaming has still managed to weather 2022's economic turbulence better than many other industries.

Almost half of all global game revenue came from the Asia-Pacific region ($87.9 billion), while North America was responsible for just over a quarter ($48.4 billion).

As usual, most of the money came from mobile games, which generated 50% of the overall revenue, or $92.2 billion, in 2022. It was followed by console games with 28% ($51.8 billion), downloaded/boxed PC games on 21% ($38.2 billion), and browser PC games with 1% ($2.3 billion). The report shows that non-browser PC games saw the smallest yearly decline, down by just 1.8%.

It's expected that both the number of worldwide gamers and the amount they spend will increase year-on-year going forward. Newzoo predicts more than 3.5 billion people could be playing games by 2025, spending around $211.2 billion.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/96720-there-32-billion-gamers-2022-but-revenue-set.html

 

[punctualturn]

They'll spend a combined total of $184.4 billion on their hobby

And Nvidia is doing their darnest to get their hands on as much of that money as they can by all means necessary

 

[Hodor]

Well, it's global crisis, people don't have money, of course the sales is going down.

 

[Uncle Al]

On the upside, gaming is now considered a reasonable therapy for some forms of PTSD and is being prescribed. Seems to work best with those suffering highly traumatic events like warfare, etc. Haven't found any solid research, it seems to be more word of mouth with a high success rate ...

 

[Steve Lalancette]

I'll never spend my money on live services. And since every AAA game is turning into live services, I don't know what to do with my money. Beside Nintendo and GOG, there's no point in playing boring multiplayer games.

 

[scavengerspc]

So the GGM is claiming that fully half the worlds' population are gamers?
Maybe I'm off here, but that sounds WAY optimistic.

 

[neeyik]

So the GGM is claiming that fully half the worlds' population are gamers?
Maybe I'm off here, but that sounds WAY optimistic.

Gaming figures have been said to be in the billions for at least 5 years. Don’t forget that it includes every possible platform and the largest sector, by a huge margin, is FTP games on phones. While the figures are probably a lot higher than if one took a 24 hour sample of the global population, to see how many people played a video game of any mind in that time, it’s estimated that over a billion smart phones & tablets are sold around the world per annum. With that kind of potential gaming userbase, it’s not entirely unbelievable that the actual number of people playing video games is that high.

 

[scavengerspc]

Gaming figures have been said to be in the billions for at least 5 years. Don’t forget that it includes every possible platform and the largest sector, by a huge margin, is FTP games on phones. While the figures are probably a lot higher than if one took a 24 hour sample of the global population, to see how many people played a video game of any mind in that time, it’s estimated that over a billion smart phones & tablets are sold around the world per annum. With that kind of potential gaming userbase, it’s not entirely unbelievable that the actual number of people playing video games is that high.

Oh man Nick I was thinking consoles and PC. Completely forgot about the smartphone gamers.

 

[captaincranky]

So the GGM is claiming that fully half the worlds' population are gamers?
Maybe I'm off here, but that sounds WAY optimistic.

The population clock just 8 billion, so 3.2 billion would be just about 40%, which is probably a bit optimistic as well.

Can you imagine the environmental chaos that would cause if most of them had GTX-3090 ti cards?

 

[mgwerner]

So the GGM is claiming that fully half the worlds' population are gamers?
Maybe I'm off here, but that sounds WAY optimistic.

They count the zombies at the bus stop pecking at their phones for carrots as "gamers."