Videogame Industry Worth Over $100 Billion Worldwide

Tom Goldman

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Aug 17, 2009
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Videogame Industry Worth Over $100 Billion Worldwide



A financial expert has tallied up the total value of the videogame industry's companies, and it's a whole lot of money.

Paul Heydon of independent banking firm Avista Partners, an investment banker working in the game sector since 1999, has come up with his best guess for the approximate value of the videogame business across the entire world. Speaking at the UK's Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2010 this week, Heydon puts videogaming at about $105 billion worldwide.

His numbers include the combination of the share values of Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Mobile gaming, retail sales, online gaming, and various other videogame industry sectors. He puts Nintendo at roughly 1/3 of the current industry's total with around $35 billion. As a comparison, other PC and console companies combined make up a total of $33 billion.

Online game companies have a value of $23 billion worldwide, which isn't surprising, but something notable is the amount of public online companies in the West versus the East. Of 44 total public online game companies, only 4 are in the West. I'm assuming he's referring to online-only companies, but financial results analysis is not necessarily my forte.

The rest of the $105 billion is made of up of mobile companies at $8 billion, retail at $3 billion, payment services at $1.3 billion, distribution/accessories with $311 million, and outsourcing at $255 million. These results are far from 100% accurate, but they do give a general idea of the videogame market's current status, and what's bringing in money and what's not.

Heydon says that these numbers show how the videogame industry has changed over the years. Where there was once a direct path from developer to publisher to distributor to retailer to consumer, now are multitudes of other avenues that allow new types of games to exist such as free-to-play MMORPGs and games sold solely through the internet from developer to consumer. Heydon predicts that the value of Mobile gaming will continue to rise, but said that retail and distribution were stagnating. Now that we have a general gauge for this stuff, I'd be interested to see a comparison in 3-5 years.

Source: MCV [http://avistapartners.com/news-events.html]

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Korten12

Now I want ma...!
Aug 26, 2009
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that is a lot! :) probably will begin to get even higher in the next couple years or so like you said.
 

vrbtny

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Sep 16, 2009
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....That doesn't actually sound that much?

I'm gonna go out on a whim here, but i'm guessing i'm the only one who thought that when i saw the number.
 

Extraintrovert

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Jul 28, 2010
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vrbtny said:
....That doesn't actually sound that much?

I'm gonna go out on a whim here, but i'm guessing i'm the only one who thought that when i saw the number.
No, you aren't the only one who thought that. All I can think of is that the USA alone spends about six times that on it's military. For a global entertainment industry that, at least now, is fairly mainstream and popular, one hundred billion is nothing.
 

AceDefective

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Mar 23, 2009
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Wow thats a lot of bananas
and cheddar
the green stuff
Hard cash
greenbacks
assets
in other word thats alot of F*#@ing money god dammit
 

Nouw

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Mar 18, 2009
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And that is why the Video Game Industry shouldn't be flamed upon.
 

Mordwyl

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Feb 5, 2009
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Do note that this is an estimate of the total worth. If you actually happen to try having a slice of the pie it'll be very tiny. A crumb.
 

Weaver

Overcaffeinated
Apr 28, 2008
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God, only 100 billion dollars! How dare we let those used game sales continue! Why, Bobby Kotick may need to sell one of his dozen Ferrari's to fill his caviar swimming poll next year!
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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That, is awesome. Who says that gamers dont put something back into the world lol
 

Orcus The Ultimate

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Nov 22, 2009
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the problem with this kind of news, is that more economists and people who's racionality differs from a gaming perspective, will take over the businesses and just think of profit...
 

Orcus The Ultimate

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Nov 22, 2009
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Am i the only one to see that this will fuck up even more the videogame devs with Economists as CEO's who think only of maximizing profit and squezzing the best our pockets ?
 

sircashews

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Dec 2, 2009
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That's it? I didn't think that video games where like movie industry big but I it was bigger then that.
 

Treblaine

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Jul 25, 2008
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Extraintrovert said:
vrbtny said:
....That doesn't actually sound that much?

I'm gonna go out on a whim here, but i'm guessing i'm the only one who thought that when i saw the number.
No, you aren't the only one who thought that. All I can think of is that the USA alone spends about six times that on it's military. For a global entertainment industry that, at least now, is fairly mainstream and popular, one hundred billion is nothing.
What you talking 'bout willis?

The cinema industry of the ENTIRE United States is worth only $10 billion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Modern_cinema

And this industry tends to dominate a LOT.

Also the US Music Industry is worth only $27.5 Billion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#21st_Century

$100 billion IS A LOT! Comparing a singular industry to the military spending of a superpower like the USA is ridiculous as this is the an "investment" to protect everything else that they hold valuable.

Remember... video games are supposed to be a "niche" entertainment industry. Certainly $100 billion is a LOT for that, eh? Most of all this report indicates a lack of capitalisation with only 4 online-only companies in the West.
 

Treblaine

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Jul 25, 2008
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Darth_Dude said:
Uh, Guys?

100 Billion is not a lot of money...
How is it not a lot?

Sheesh, I know we have all gotten a bit jaded to money now we are living in with "Trillionaire" economics of Trillions of dollars in expenditure, Trillions of dollars in debt, Trillion dollar loans and Trillion everything; Trillion bytes of data in a typical hard drive.

But 100 billion is one tenth of a trillion... how many industries come close to even a small fraction of a Trillion? Gaming industry to spite being considered a very niche-entertainment is earning WAY more than other entertainment industries.
 

pyrus7

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Mar 16, 2010
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Treblaine said:
What you talking 'bout willis?

The cinema industry of the ENTIRE United States is worth only $10 billion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Modern_cinema

And this industry tends to dominate a LOT.

Also the US Music Industry is worth only $27.5 Billion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#21st_Century
What you are quoting is not how much those respective companies are worth, but rather their annual revenues. The $100 billion is the combined shareholder value of all video gaming companies, not the annual revenue.

http://gamer.blorge.com/2010/01/16/2009-video-game-industry-revenue-breakdown/
2009 revenue was only $19 billion for US gaming industry. Still more than cinema, but less than music. And remember, these are just revenues, not profits.