03/19/2023 at 6:30 p.m. by Andreas Link – The gaming market is surprisingly slightly in the red if you go by the figures from Newzoo. However, the alarm does not have to be raised when sales are made.
The gaming industry benefited from the pandemic and was able to present good figures, but the Ukraine crisis and the consequences of it are now also having an impact on the gaming market. According to figures from Newzoo, PC and console gaming is down 2.2 percent in sales compared to the previous year. It’s the consoles that pull the value into the red. They are 4.2 percent below the previous year. PC gaming can’t quite make up for that with an increase of 1.8 percent. But even here it is clear: the enormous growth figures can no longer be regenerated. Last year, 611 million console games and 1.1 million PC games were circulated. In terms of revenue, consoles fare slightly better as they command higher average selling prices per title.
The player interaction is also going down and clearly here. Compared to 2021, people spent 23 percent less time gaming in 2022. Here, too, the values normalize, because the level of 2018/2019 is now reached. But you can’t blame everything on the pandemic. Prices and availability for hardware and games as well as shifts – that also counts on the account.
Despite this decline, over 100 billion hours were spent playing PC and console games in 2022. On average, 15 games were played per player on each platform, and the US market average spend on each platform was $200.
However, the situation for games in 2023 will probably not be quite as bleak as it is on the hardware market. Compared to 2019, it is assumed that the current year will end better. Calculated from 2015, it’s still 3.6 percent up for PC gaming and 7.8 percent up for console gaming. There are also no indications of any geographic shifts in sales. North America and Europe are losing something, which the Middle East and Africa in particular are catching up to.
Games that combine a premium model (full-price game) and microtransactions generate the best revenues. Of course, there are long-running sales such as Roblox and Minecraft, which are practically out of competition, but for new releases, a mix is the best choice. Newzoo therefore anticipates that PC and console games will soon adopt hybrid monetization models, including in-game advertising. The analysts also anticipate that more triple-A and double-A developers and publishers will switch to the live service strategy for their largest franchises. Newzoo predicts strong growth for the gaming market in 2023 and beyond, fueled primarily by console gaming, as you can see in the slide above.
Those: Newzoo
