Although gaming has managed to weather 2022’s economic turbulence better than many other industries, video game revenues still grew by a modest 5% to $208.6bn, showing the lowest annual growth rate since 2017. However, the entire industry is expected to recover significantly this year and witness much stronger revenue and user growth.
According to data presented by Sports Lens, global gaming revenues are expected to jump by 11% year-over-year and hit $233bn in 2023.
After Strong 2023, Revenue Growth to Continue Falling by 2025
In the past years, the gaming industry showed impressive resilience to global economic shocks, with revenues and users surging while other sectors suffered major hits. However, for the first time in its history, the gaming industry saw its user base shrink last year. The number of gamers plunged by 176 million, and this huge drop impacted revenue growth.
According to a Statista survey, 2022 saw the smallest annual revenue growth in the last five years. In comparison, 2018 and 2019 saw an 11% year-over-year revenue increase, while 2021 set a new record. That year alone, global gaming revenues jumped by an impressive 27% YoY, resulting in a market volume of $198.6bn.
Although 2023 will see a significant recovery, with gaming revenues rising by 11% to $233.5bn, revenue growth is expected to slow down again in the next two years. Statista expects the entire market to witness a 9% revenue growth in 2024. However, in 2025, the growth rate will fall to only 6%, with revenues rising to over $270bn globally.
Digital video games, the market’s largest segment, are expected to bring in $222.2bn this year, 12% more than a year ago. Physically sold video games are forecast to generate $11.3bn in revenue in 2023, only 1% more than last year but still far below the $13.4bn seen in 2021.
More than 225 million New Gamers in 2023
Last year, the gaming industry lost 176 million users due to a variety of headwinds and challenges, including inflation, the end of Covid-19 lockdowns and regulatory issues in China. Statistics show around 2.99 billion people played video games in 2022 via console, computer or mobile device, down from 3.17 in 2021.
However, Statista expects the number of gamers to grow by 225 million in 2023, with their total number reaching 3.22 billion worldwide. Most of that growth will come from the digital games segment, which will have over 2.6 billion users, up from 2.4 billion a year ago.
According to Statista, the number of gamers will continue growing in the next two years and hit over 3.5 billion by 2025.
