The global video games industry has undergone substantial growth over the past two decades. Looking back to the start of this period, it was a market still locked in competition with other legacy media sectors such as the film and music industries, though several innovations were quick to lead to it expanding to a far greater scale.
The first of these was the arrival of broadband internet into more and more homes across the world which drove up the appetite and interest in online gaming. This was the era where World of Warcraft reigned supreme on Windows PCs with an estimated 12 million active players signing up – record-breaking for the time. It also saw home game consoles begin to roll out more comprehensive online gaming servers, with Microsoft’s Xbox console leading the charge with Xbox Live.
This development was also driven by the millennials who, having grown up on gaming in the 90s, were now in a position to invest their disposable income on products relating to it.
As if these key trends were not enough, by the late 2000s the modern smartphone and its bustling app ecosystem had definitely arrived, opening up gaming to all new audiences and demographics.
The picture this paints today is stark – the global games industry, estimated to be worth $300+ billion in annual revenue, is fully two times the size of the film industry – and that being in spite of the phenomenal success of modern franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Suffice to say, that gaming is the dominant media market in the world today. What’s more, it’s still growing – but where can this new growth be charted, and why?
Esports
The past 4 years have presided over an explosion in the fortunes and profile of competitive video gaming. Known more commonly as esports, the notion of high-level competitive play has been around as long as gaming has, though the roots of the modern phenomenon can be traced to post-2000s South Korea. From there, it has since expanded to become a global craze with dedicated platforms like Twitch serving as its online home.
Leading esports like League of Legends and Counter-Strike Global Offensive 2 are genuinely huge businesses, attracting vast investment, huge prize pools, and expanding player bases.
Mobile and Online Gaming
Mobile platforms represent an enormous boon to the modern games industry, accounting for up to 50% of all revenues it generates. The reasons for this are diverse, though a number of novel monetization models that got their start on mobile before spreading to other platforms are a key driver.
The best known of these, are, of course, the freemium game – titles that extract funds from users in exchange for items, power-ups, and bonus content.
The mobile ecosystem has also led to historically browser-based sectors of the games industry experiencing a sizable uptick also, with the iGaming and online casino markets emerging as a frontrunning concern. Here one can find dedicated platforms like VegasSlotsOnline furnishing thousands of real money titles for diverse regions across the globe. What’s more, with competitive welcome bonuses and sign-up offers provided increasingly as standard, modern iGaming is more cost-effective and accessible than ever before.
F2P (Free to Play)
While it may share some passing similarities with freemium titles, the F2P genre is predicated on a relatively distinct model. This is because whereas freemium titles typically lock content vital for progress behind paywalls, F2P games do not. In this sense, they are truly free to play. This has a positive impact on player numbers and ensures that popular titles like Fortnite, Call of Duty Warzone 2, and Apex Legends support active communities.
Free to Play games monetize their experience by the sale of microtransactions and customization features. These range from weapon skins to player outfits and emotes. The key thing is that none of these confer competitive advantages on those who buy them, making them a truly “opt-in” proposition.
You could be forgiven for wondering how effective a business model this actually is – though the fact that Fortnite made $9 billion in micro-transactions sales in its first 2 years should disabuse even the most ardent skeptic of its efficacy.
