With the outbreak of COVID-19, home entertainment seems to be the only option for gamers in lockdown while cinemas and theaters continue their’ door-closed’ policy to prevent the disease. A March 2020 survey at the beginning of the pandemic, showed that that video gamers in the US reported that they spent 45% more time playing video games amid the quarantine than in the previous week… that number has surely grown over the subsequent year of quarantine.
Esports is another emerging industry that manages to make more than a billion dollars a year. Now, after the pandemic, it has gained further traction. A recent look at the US Online Gaming Industry by Statista came up with a number of statistics and facts, including:
- Revenue in the Online Games segment is projected to reach US$23,582 Million in 2021;
- Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2021-2025) of 7.36%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$31,328 Million by 2025;
- User penetration will be 14.6% in 2021 and is expected to hit 16.4% by 2025;
- The average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected to amount to US$21.49Million; and
- In global comparison, most revenue will be generated in China (US$5,599Million in 2021).
Active tech companies in the markets this week include Versus Systems Inc., Caesars Entertainment, Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Zynga Inc., Activision Blizzard.
The report continued: “The global media and entertainment market has consistently been on the rise. The entire worldwide market is projected to grow… to $2.2 trillion by 2021. Gaming is an integral and ever-developing segment of this market. The two largest gaming regions, Asia Pacific and North America, are predicted to (continue to) account for 78% of global revenues… Online gaming in particular is one of the branches that has evolved over the past decades. It includes social gaming, mobile gaming, as well as free-to-play and pay-to-play massively multiplayer gaming, otherwise known as MMO gaming. The latter two segments combined generated revenues of roughly $19.9 billion beginning in) in 2016 and, judging by the data volume of global online gaming traffic alone, which is forecast to grow from 126 petabytes in 2016 to 568 petabytes in 2020, it is safe to assume online gaming is here to stay through 2021 and beyond). The number of console gamers is expected to grow to over 57 million by 2020 and the market for PC online games alone is projected to (exceed its 2019 value of $33.6 billion).”
