Videogames Will Be Worth $100 Billion Annually by 2017

[StewShearerOld]

Videogames Will Be Worth $100 Billion Annually by 2017

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 <a href=http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/videogames-hollywood>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 <a href=http://www.digi-capital.com/reports>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: <a href=http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-14-mobile-gaming-to-push-industry-above-USD100-billion-by-2017>GamesIndustry International


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[Dragonbums]

And by 2017 one of two things may happen- videogames are even more souless, retread, uninspired, trash, or the industry begins to implode on itself due to publishers still not knowing how to budget a game.

 

[holyshaman]

let me start op by saying i do not like mobile gaming and this new audience can have positiv/negativ effects. i can not think about a positiv right away but a negativ would be more forced tutorials on games with common knowledge like a shooter or racing game im looking at you need for speed.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Not if they keep on charging us for every single thing they can in a game. We are already getting sold dlc, charged to level up or in game money etc etc If they start taking note of mobile games which do the same but worst, check out the star trek trexels reveiw by angry joe. I think it will kill the gaming industry out right.

I just want to buy a game and enjoy it. Not have the company extend the length of a grind session in the hope we get fed up and pay for cash. Currently this is what Forza and GT did. Alas i think we will see more of this.

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm not really a mobile person unless it's the PSP. The real deal for video games is doing so while personally comfortable, which is achieved by their personal console or computer. Mobile games are a good niche product, but people don't like everyone else looking over their shoulders.

 

[geizr]

And, yet, no one can make any money, everyone's hemorrhaging buckets of money in development and marketing costs, and everyone's going bankrupt, left and right; at least, that's the message we're constantly getting regarding the AAA segment of video gaming. There's a strong inconsistency or imbalance regarding the health of the industry. To have a $100 billion market and industry with everyone struggling, to me, means either the journalistic reporting and discussion on the health of the industry has been...grotesquely inaccurate and hyperbolic, the AAA companies have been outright lying about the meagerness of their profits and the enormity of their losses, or the management for AAA game publishers and game developers absolutely suck, like super-massive galactic black-holes, at managing their business (in which case, they need to find a new line of work, in my opinion). Of course, there is the further possibility that all these statements about the amount of money in video gaming are just wrong. In any case, to me, it just seems difficult to have an industry with so much money in it and having such a high rate of growth and, yet, be constantly in so much danger of failure. There's a disconnect or dysfunction somewhere.

ADDENDUM: Realized I misread the statement on $100 billion. That's not current; that's by 2017. Even so, that means there currently is a lot of money in the industry and market, and it is growing fairly rapidly. So, I think the general point of my statements are still valid. The industry looks solidly health on paper, but we keep hearing that it's not. But, I do caveat that the lack of healthiness is often observed as isolated to the AAA segment and doesn't seem to extend to other parts of the industry. Mobile, indie, and small developer games are apparently doing gangbusters.