Games are a big industry that is only continuing to grow and according to a recent analytical report from Futuresource the amount of money that global consumers are on track to spend by the year 2020 is in the ball park of $150 billion. As of 2018 the report states that consumer spend globally was sitting at around $132 billion which means in less than a year or so the money spent on gaming is due to increase by about $18 billion annually.
The mobile gaming market makes up a very large chunk of the money that consumers are spending on their games and game time. The report notes that 2018 marked another good year for companies who made money from mobile games with the market reaching around $63 billion globally.
This is stated to be a 10-percent increase over the year before, and although that figure is large it’ll be even bigger next year with no signs of slowing down. Mobile gaming consumer spend globally is expected to jump from around $63 billion to nearly $75 billion by 2020 and make for half of all consumer spending in games.
Right now mobile gaming sits just under half of the gaming market’s consumer spending thanks to the combined spend from PC and consoles. The report doesn’t mention how much the PC gaming market accounts for but it does note that console consumer spend globally in 2018 was around $28 billion, this includes anything from the Xbox One to the PS4 to consoles like Nintendo’s Switch and 3Ds.
This leaves around $42 billion left over out of the $132 billion that makes up the market entirely between PC, consoles, and mobile, so it’s safe to assume that close to $42 billion is about what consumers were spending on games for PC.
This report also suggests that with mobile expected to increase, consumer spending would have to decrease on either consoles or PC platforms, though it’s possible that it could decrease a little bit in both areas to account for the extra money that consumers will spend on mobile gaming next year.
An increase in spending on mobile games compared to games on other platforms shouldn’t really be shocking news. Regions like the Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America are becoming more and more reliant on mobile devices when it comes to computing needs, and gaming is following thanks to the ever-growing library of available mobile gaming content.
It certainly doesn’t hurt, either, that more and more publishers are looking at mobile as a viable gaming platform, and with companies like Tencent bringing some of gaming’s biggest franchises to mobile, like Call of Duty as well as smash hit battle royale title PUBG, mobile gaming as the platform of choice tends to look better and better to the consumer especially in countries where mobile device ownership is still rapidly growing.
sections of gaming across all platforms, like Esports, are continuing to bring in more money than in the past as well, and this is another areas where mobile engagement is increasing thanks to games like Fortnite, Asphalt 9 Legends, Clash Royale, PUBG MOBILE, and likely Call of Duty Mobile once it launches.
With platforms like Stadia on the way it’ll be interesting to see how the market classifies cloud gaming. Technically these are virtual PCs so they might just account for a segment of the PC gaming market, but since they don’t actually offer up any PC hardware to the consumer they could be considered their own separate platform and make up a new segment for these kinds of figures.
If this happens to be the case down the line, then in just a few years if Stadia and other platforms are still around they could potentially steal away a sizable chunk of this money. For now, mobile gaming seems to be the largest portion of the gaming market when it comes to the money consumers are spending on their games and in-game content.