Newzoo: The Gaming Market in 2023
The main numbers for this year by markets and platforms are inside. And trends aka what to expect in upcoming years.
Revenue - general numbers
The gaming market in 2023 will earn $187.7B. It’s 2.6% more than last year despite all the troubles the market experienced (and continues to handle).
Newzoo is optimistic that the gaming market stabilized after the post-pandemic crisis. By 2026 its size will reach $212.4B.
Revenue - platforms
Most revenue is still coming from the mobile market ($92.6B), but in 2023 this segment will grow only by 0.8%. Newzoo analysts suggest that mobile gaming growth will be limited at least by 2026.
The console games segment in 2023 will show the highest growth numbers - by 7.4% to $56.1B. There are 3 success factors: release of postponed titles; some hits arrived; new consoles shipping returned back to normal.
The PC games market will grow by 1.6% and reach $37.1B. Browser PC games are on a declining trend for years, in 2023 they’ll decrease by 16.9% YoY to $1.9B.
The number of paying users of Cloud Gaming will reach 43.1M by the end of 2023. By 2025 this number will reach 80.4M.
Regions
The Asia-Pacific region is the largest by revenue in the world. It’s responsible for 46% of the overall revenue ($85.8B - +1.2% YoY). Next are North America (27% of the market; $51.6B - 3.8% YoY growth); Europe (18% of the market; $34.4B - 3.2% YoY growth); Latin America (5% of the market; $8.8B - 4.3% YoY growth), and MENA (4% of the market; $7.2B - 6.9% YoY growth).
The Asia-Pacific region is also the largest in terms of audience (53% of the worldwide audience lives there; 1.79B gamers; in 2023 it will increase by 5.7%). It might be a surprise for someone, but the MENA market is the second largest by audience (17% of gamers live there; 574M people; +12.3% YoY). Next are Europe (13% of the audience; 447M; +3.6% YoY); Latin America (10% of the audience; 335M; +6.1% YoY), and North America (7% of the audience; 237M; +2.4% YoY).
The gaming audience worldwide
The number of players in 2023 will increase by 6.3% and reach 3.38B. By 2026 it will surge to 3.79B.
84.4% of this amount in 2023 will play on mobile devices; 26.3% - on a PC; 18.6% - on consoles.
The number of paying users will increase by 7.3% in 2023 with 1.47B people in total. By the end of 2026, the number of paying gamers will increase to 1.66B with a +4.7% CAGR.
Companies
Tencent ($7.56B), Sony ($4.38B), and Apple ($3.68B) are leaders in gaming revenue among public companies.
Transmedia
Transmedia releases are positively affecting games MAU. In cases that the Newzoo team reviewed, the MAU of titles that received transmedia attention was increased by 40% on its peak. After stabilization, MAU growth was about 33-38%.
Trends
The live-service games are huge on PC and Consoles. The competition for the user’s time is cut-throat.
AI is stepping into the industry. Now its effect on the final product and production processes is low, but almost all market players are sure that the AI implementation will grow.
The role of complimentary consoles - like Steam Deck - probably will increase.
Mobile developers are forced to find new ways for generating revenue because of platform regulations. PC/Console releases are a part of those moves.
UGC and the creative economy continue to grow. Influencers’ influence (hehe) is on the rise, and they started to open their own gaming studios.
VR/AR is expected to boost after the Apple announcement of Apple Vision Pro.
Saudi Arabia is one of the gaming industry growth leaders with Savvy Gaming Group being an investment leader in 2023.