The electronic games market will reach a size of about $200.8bn by the end of 2023, according to a recent report by the Newzoo Research Foundation.
The report added that the market size reached about $159.3bn during 2020, with a growth of 9.3% over the year 2019.
According to the report, games have become a means of escape and have filled time for many due to the circumstances caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. As a result, there has been an increased interest in gaming due to the global lockdowns caused by the pandemic, which has caused a commensurate growth in the electronic games market during 2020.
All gaming sectors witnessed an increase in interest revenues, but it was mobile games that saw the largest increase, with revenues of about $77.2bn, reflecting an increase of 13.3%.
The report noted that the number of players taking part via mobile phones reached about 2.6 billion, of whom only 38% pay for the games.
Console games, on the other hand, grew 6.8% year-on-year to $45.2bn, despite being negatively affected by the pandemic.
For example, in the second quarter (Q2) of 2020, The Last of Us 2 and Ghost of Tshushima, a PlayStation 4 exclusive, were delayed due to distribution issues resulting from the pandemic.
Driven by 1.3 billion players, PC gaming grew 4.8% year-on-year to $36.9bn in 2020. This growth can be attributed almost entirely to the lockdown measures.
