The online gaming industry has experienced explosive growth in recent years. Its global player base has already surpassed a billion users as of today.
Now, the questions are:
- Will the gaming industry keep expanding?
- And what effects does online gaming have on the gaming companies’ profits?
Let’s find out.
The Explosive Market Expansion of the Online Gaming Industry
The global market of the online gaming industry has been growing explosively in the last few years. A report from Allied Market Research expects the online gaming market to experience a remarkable growth rate of 11.1% per year.
The same report also predicted the market size of the virtual gaming industry to explode to $231.4 billion by the end of 2032.
Such an incredible growth rate in the gaming industry is not without reason. Several critical factors are fueling the rapid growth of this industry, including:
- Increased accessibility to high-quality mobile devices and high-speed internet.
- A diverse range of gaming genres and multiple promising online gaming platforms.
- Introduction to new features like in-game chat and multiplayer mode, allowing the players to interact socially with other users all around the globe.
- Advanced tech innovations like AI, VR devices, and top-notch graphics.
A Sneak Peak into Regional Market Growth of the Online Gaming Industry
Although the online gaming industry is expanding fast all over the world, a few regions do stand out. The regions that made significant contributions to this industry’s growth are:
- Asia-Pacific: This region literally dominates the online slot gaming market. Gamers from China, South Korea, and Japan spend a large sum of money each year on online games, gaming equipment, and casino games.
The gaming industry in China alone generates more than $40 billion in revenue each year
- Europe: This region has a diverse gaming culture. Several countries from this region, especially Germany, France, and the UK have seen a huge spike in game development studios in recent years.
- North America: This region boasts a large community of online gamers. The virtual gaming market here generates a considerable amount of revenue per year, especially through casino games and eSports.
How Does Online Gaming Generate Profit for Businesses?
The online games generate revenue and profit for the related organizations in many ways. They are:
1. In-app Purchases
In-app purchases and various microtransactions are the key streams of revenue of most online gaming companies.
These in-app purchases usually include cosmetic skins, potions, avatar enhancement buffs, virtual currencies, and other items. According to Statista’s prediction, the total value of global in-game purchases may exceed $74.4 billion in 2025.
Clearly, in-app microtransactions take up a large chunk of the revenue of online gaming businesses.
2. Subscriptions
Subscription models have become increasingly popular among video game fanatics in the last few years. Players can subscribe to EA Play, PlayStation Now, or Xbox Game Pass for a fixed monthly fee to get access to a large library of video games.
This way, you can get access to many games in a cost-effective way. And the companies can get a stable source of revenue.
It’s a win-win deal.
3. In-game Ads
In-game advertisement is yet another way for game developers to generate substantial revenue from their apps.
Many games adopt this method along with an in-app transaction model to earn profit while letting their users play games without paying an upfront price.
As a result, the gaming app’s player base will rise fast. And the company will also generate a decent revenue.
4. eSports
eSports uses competitive gaming events, media rights, and sponsorships to generate revenue for gaming companies. A Statista report reveals that the global eSports revenue was over $1.38 billion in 2022.
The report also predicts the global eSports revenue to cross $1.86 billion in 2025.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the online gaming industry has seen explosive growth in recent years. And it’s predicted to grow more in the upcoming decade, giving the gaming businesses a great opportunity to generate a substantial amount of profit.
As long as the gaming companies play their part right, they can successfully gobble up a part of the huge pie of the ever-expanding gaming market.
