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The gaming industry is expected to reach a global annual revenue of $300bn and 3.8bn active players by 2030, according to research from Midia.
The gaming industry is the undisputed king of the entertainment farmyard, boasting three times the revenue of music and almost four times that of the silver screen, but how will the lay of the land look by 2030?
Spoiler alert: Gaming will remain firmly on top.
A report from business analytics firm Midia has forecasted that the industry will reach an eye-watering $300bn by the end of the decade, with a global active player-base of over 3.8bn.
Since last year, the number of subscribers to apps like Game Pass, EA Play, and Google Play Pass have increased from 171m to 180m, generating a cool $11.7bn. Looking at the whole pie, however, this is nothing compared to the spending coming from in-game purchases.
Covering 67.2% of all spending, $125bn will be committed to acquiring in-game content โ with the lionโs share of $72.5bn going on cosmetic purchases alone โ before the yearโs end. People really need those Fortnite skins, huh?
Looking across the mediums of console, PC, and mobile, the latter is far and away the primary earner ($105bn) while the others trail at $45.3bn and $36.4bn respectively. Cloud gaming, meanwhile, is steadily gaining traction at around $4.3bn.
Despite the impressive figures touted in the report, its authors Karol Severin and Perry Gresham warn that the growth pace of gaming has โarguably peakedโ already and that intrinsic changes may have to take place soon.
As we previously covered, the real hey-day of gamingโs growth occurred against a backdrop COVID lockdowns throughout 2020 and 2021, before a 5% decline was recorded in 2022.
Itโs believed global revenue will return to growth this year, though with a significant caveat that it will remain under the rate of inflation at around 6.5%. โThe games industry will not see more than low- to mid-single digit percentage growth for the remainder of the decade,โ the report reads.
