A recent report on the mobile game industry in 2022 released by Sensor Tower shows that the global mobile game market revenue may reach 86 billion USD in 2022, down 2.3% year-over-year.
This is not the first report that predicts a decline in the global game market. In July, data from market research company Ampere showed that after seven years of continuous growth, the global game market is expected to see its first decline this year, with global video game sales expected to fall 1.2% to 188 billion USD in 2022.
In addition, the financial results show that global game development companies such as Sony, Microsoft and Tencent are also facing the challenge of declining game business this year.
Data shows that the number of global games released in the first half of 2022 decreased by nearly three thousand compared to the same period last year, with the majority being indie games, and the number of game developers decreased by 909.
Zhao, head of business development for Google Play in mainland China, believes that the decline is due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He stated that benefiting from the quarantine from the pandemic, the game industry grew at a high rate in 2020 and 2021, setting a new high with 191 billion USD in revenue and even cashing in early on what it should have done in 2022.
Despite the decline in 2022, the industry is still relatively optimistic about the growth of the game market next year, and many major development companies are still increasing their investment in game studios.
For example, Tencent has recently invested heavily in FromSoftware and Ubisoft.
In terms of the mobile market, Sensor Tower expects the market revenue to return to a growth trajectory in 2023, rising to 117 billion USD by 2026 and growing at a 5.6% growth trend year-over-year.
“In the long term, the game industry is still a market with potential, great potential.” Zhao believes that the demand for entertainment has always existed, and many innovations in games now allow players to have more options in the market. With the emergence of new hardware relating to the Metaverse and VR/AR in general, the game industry will keep growing in the future.
Source: Sina Finance