The year 2022 is coming to an end. This paper summarizes the global gaming industry in 2022 and looks forward to the future of the industry.
Newzoo reviewed various data of the global gaming market in 2022, and predicted that the global gaming market revenue would reach 184.4 billion dollars in 2022, down about 4.3% year on year. Compared with other platform games, the revenue decline of mobile games is more obvious. They predicted that the revenue of mobile gaming market would reach 92.2 billion dollars in 2022, down 6.4% year on year.
Tianyi Gu, head of mobile market at Newzoo, said: “There are two main reasons for the decline of mobile game revenue this year. The first is the continuous change of mobile game privacy related policies, especially in iOS, where restrictions on identifying and tracking valuable players continue to bring resistance to game manufacturers and advertisers. Secondly, with the re opening of the world after the epidemic, spending in mobile games is no longer a priority for consumers, and people’s disposable income is also due to currency Inflation is also becoming more and more tense. The threshold for mobile games to enter is as low as it is for mobile games to exit. “
In 2022, as the number of new visitors decreases, the revenue of host games will also decline by about 4.2% year on year. PC games are relatively little affected, even with a small year-on-year growth of 0.5%. Among the top 10 games sorted by MAU, there is only one new game: Call of Duty Modern Warfare II, which will be released in 2022.
Important Industry News in 2022
The most talked about news of this year came early: in January, Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard, and the opening price of $68.7 billion broke the historical record of the gaming industry. It has not only caused continuous discussion in the industry, but also attracted the attention of market regulators in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The well-known IP and studio owned by Activision Blizzard can help Xbox’s Game Pass subscription system greatly increase in value, whether it is to obtain new players or to retain existing users. The currently dormant IPs like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft are also valuable for Xbox. The latter can add these classic games to the subscription system, or develop new IP sequels. Xbox’s subscription service is leading in the industry, so it’s reasonable for them to decide to tilt resources in this field. Xbox has said that PlayStation and Nintendo are no longer their direct competitors. They are targeting other technology giants. For Microsoft, which is fighting a protracted war, content and services will be their strategic core.
In addition to the above news, there are also some other important news in the gaming industry. One of the longest cooperation relationships in the history of the game ended: FIFA and EA chose to go their separate ways after FIFA 23. Take Two acquired Zynga for an enterprise value of $12.7 billion. Sony launched a new subscription system to compete more closely with Xbox Game Pass. Bungie, Haven and Savage game studios are included by PlayStation. China has ended the freezing of version number approval and issued the first game version numbers since July 2021. Virtual Engine 5 (UE5) is officially available for developers.
Cloud Gaming Market Highlights
Cloud games are one of the highlights of the market this year. Newzoo predicts that in 2022, more than 30 million users will spend $2.4 billion on cloud gaming services. They expect this revenue to grow to $8.2 billion by 2025.
The cloud gaming market has become more and more mature, and new cloud gaming services have been introduced continuously. Existing companies are expanding and adjusting their marketing and business to better meet the needs of consumers. Service providers are innovating on paid design and use cases, which has attracted more users and attention to their cloud services than ever before. Xbox and PlayStation players are supplementing their core hardware experience with cloud games.
Seamless is today’s buzzword, while cloud games allow players to play immediately before downloading without having expensive hardware peripherals first. Video streaming companies like Netflix are also looking for games to help them improve their competitiveness in their core segments. We believe that cloud games will play an important role in it.
Development of VR Gaming & Metaverse
Newzoo believes that the future of VR games is also optimistic. In 2022, the number of active VR users in the world will reach 27.7 million, which is expected to increase to 46 million by the end of 2024. At the same time, revenue continues to grow: revenue is expected to increase to $3.2 billion by 2024.
VR is becoming an economically sustainable platform for the game industry. In addition, VR technology will have a huge impact on medical, education, engineering and other entertainment industries. These use cases are driving innovation in motion tracking, haptic feedback, and spatial video.
Games such as Roblox, Minefield and Fortnite are popular around the world. These games have evolved into social platforms to share lists of game and non game experiences. After the outbreak of 2021, the hype about “metaverse” has cooled down in recent months. However, Metauniverse is still an exciting new advertising channel for brands.
With the recognition of young people on social platforms such as Fortnite and Roblox, brands began to pay attention to and participate in this novel entertainment media. As early as September this year, Roblox also announced that it would put advertisements on the platform to promote the diversification of its revenue channels.
