Video Games Through the Years Graphs

Video games were once just considered a way of recreation and passing time. Over the years, video games have become a major industry as video games are no longer just a free time activity. Video game competitions are held globally for a prize to the contestants. This has helped in promoting the entire video gaming industry to a billion-dollar one. Let’s take a closer look at video games from the numbers.

Find Out More…

Video Gaming Industry Market Value

Video Gaming Industry Market Value

The video gaming industry has seen an exponential rise in market value. Many large players have entered this market and disrupted the industry. The availability of high-tech graphics on smartphones has allowed many top game developers to launch their games on smartphone platforms as well such as Call of Duty, Need for Speed, and PUBG. The graph shows the positive trend in the Video Gaming Industry’s Market Value. 

As of 2012, the video gaming market industry market value was at $58.3 billion. Since then, it has shown a gradual increase and reached the $100 billion mark in 2017. By the end of 2017, it was at $104.57 billion. Further increase has also been noticed in the subsequent years. Surprisingly, by the end of 2021, the global market value of the video gaming industry reached $158.4 billion. This is a more than $100 billion worth increase since 2012. 

The Top Video Gaming Markets in the World

The Top Video Gaming Markets in the World

Video gaming is not particularly related to one country. This is mainly because access to video games is cheap. Besides, being a popular recreational activity, the youth and young adults are attracted to it. The gaming industry has its main focus in China and USA which are the top two video gaming markets in the world. 

As of 2021, China had $49.5 billion in revenue from video games which is expected to reach $71.2 billion by 2025. Similarly, in 2021, the USA had $30.4 billion in gaming revenue which is expected to reach $42.5 billion by 2025. Japan is also a key player in the video gaming market with a 2021 revenue of $18.2 billion and is forecasted to reach $24 billion in 2025. 

Other players in this market are considerably smaller with revenues in 2021 less than $7 billion currently and are expected to cross $8.5 billion by 2025. This includes South Korea, the United Kingdom, and India as well. Lastly, France, Russia, Germany, and Mexico are the smallest players in this industry with 2021 revenue of less than $3 billion and expected to reach around $3.6 billion by 2025. 

Average Hours Spent Weekly on Gaming (Country Wise)

Average Hours Spent on Video Gaming

We understand that the gaming industry has gone big. However, the reasons for this massive growth are still subjective. A few experts believe it is because of the new game developers in the market which has led to this rise while others believe that the increase in gaming hours has been the reason why it has been a trend. There could be several other reasons too.

Surprisingly, average hours spent weekly on gaming is one of the most accurate ways to determine how influential and important gaming has become in different countries. As per the graph, it can be seen that most countries have more than 6 weekly gaming hours per person. This includes Germany (6.92), the United Kingdom (6.89), the United States (6.76), Japan (6.64), India (6.35), Italy (6.26), and France (6.22). The remaining two countries, Singapore and the Republic of Korea have 5.85 and 5.04 hours on average spent weekly on gaming, respectively. 

Genre Breakdown of Video Game Sales In the US in 2018

Genre Breakdown of Video Game Sales in the United States in 2018

Not every game hits the market and not every game fails. However, historical trends show that certain genres perform better than others. This is why a lot of games are directed to a particular genre only. Most gamers prefer action games because they give them a unique level of thrill and excitement which may not be present in other games. 

From the graph, it can be seen that 26.9% of video game sales in the US in 2018 were from the action genre. This is followed by Shooter games (20.9%), Role-Playing (11.3%), Sports (11.1%), and Adventure (7.9%). The remaining three genres include fighting, racing, and others. All of these (combined) account for about 16% of video game sales. 

Top Earning Video Game Companies and Developers in the World

Top-Earning Video Game Companies and Developers in the World

Video gaming is now a highly competitive industry as many big players have made their way into this market. Earlier, only Sony and Microsoft were considered as the top players but now there are a lot of video game companies. The growing revenue has surpassed billions of dollars which is one reason why the industry keeps on rising as well. Further research and development is continued. 

From the graph, it can be seen that Sony has still maintained the first position by a massive $25 billion in gaming revenue as of 2020. The second position is at Tencent at $13.9 billion which is about half of Sony. Others in this include Nintendo ($12.1 billion), Microsoft ($11.6 billion), Activision Blizzard ($8.1 billion), Electronic Arts ($5.5 billion), Epic Games ($4.2 billion), Take-Two Interactive ($3.1 billion), Sega Sammy ($2.3 billion), and Bandai Namco ($2.2 billion).

Top Selling Video Games (Updated as of February 2021)

Top-Selling Video Games of All Time

While the gaming industry is well-versed and diversified, some games always have higher sales than others even if they go old. These games are considered classical and stay in the trend for a very long era which results in their high sales as well. One might think that the top position in this sector would be of a highly tech-infused and graphically-advanced game. However, the first position is of Tetris which has sold more than 500 million copies as of February 2021. 

Other games are barely even close to this number, although they are big too. Minecraft has over 200 million copies sold, Grand Theft Auto has over 120 million copies sold, Wii Sports has more than 90 million copies sold as of 2021. Other games in this list include PUBG, Pokémon, Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart Wii, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.