Today digital gaming has become one of the most booming sectors. In 2016, the global digital gaming revenue was around $93.89 billion. But in 2022, there is a huge lead in the market worth $272.24 billion. Recently, mobile gaming has the most market followed by console and PC games. The rise in the global digital gaming market is due to the fast-growing internet and smartphone usage. On the other hand, PC games and console games also have a good position with good growth in CAGR of 11% and 14.8% through 2017-2022. Though lots of people play online games on smartphones and tablets still you can see good growth in the PC and console segment. There is a good rise in VR, eSports, and digital purchases.
Growth Factors
The main reason behind the heavy rise of digital gaming globally is the better internet and smartphones. With good RAM and display, people prefer playing games on the smartphone. This led to great growth in the digital distribution of games. These games become more attractive with time. Today almost every type of digital game is available. Among them, MMO and MOBA are the most popular ones. Many people are seeking digital games as their profession. Lots of games like PUBG, CTF, etc are famous around the world. One of the popular games is the forest cross-platform PS4 and PC. Pro gaming culture is more popular in Asian countries however now growth is appearing globally.
Threats
Despite the growth, there are still lots of challenges for digital gaming. One of the common problems is internet speed. In lots of regions, there is still a problem with internet speed. Another is the quality of smartphones. Lots of smartphones are released for gaming purposes. But they are quality costly as compared to others. To play MMO or other high-quality games, you require good smartphones.
Direct-to-gamers
One of the popular trends of digital gaming is to deliver the game content directly to the gamers. Without any barriers, people can get the game directly. Lots of big companies like Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace provide the platform to gamers for direct purchase and downland the content. Several other sites are also providing similar experiences like Origin and Steam. Today if a company wants good growth in the gaming market, it needs to adopt this digital distribution business model. It helps them to gain more crowd and good establishment in the market. Some of the best gaming companies like EA, Ubisoft, etc are moving from retail distribution to digital distribution channels.
Cryptocurrency as virtual credits
Most digital games are paid as the companies monetize those games with a virtual credit system. Gamers have to make payments to download the gaming content. Now many companies like Mego etc are integrating blockchain technologies for payment which means a gamer can purchase the game using crypto money.
eSport
With the increase in online gaming, lots of gamers are interested in eSports. It is a competitive video game where all players compete with each other on an online or live environment platform. In the eSport channel, there can be a large number of viewers along with gamers.
AR and VR technologies
Augmented reality and virtual reality have become the essential gaming trends. AR and VR become way popular as they are available at affordable prices to gamers. Today gamers can spend hours and hours playing VR games and they provide an excellent gaming experience. If we talk about AR, you can see the popularity growth of Pokemon Go.
Female players
Still, lots of people think that gaming is only for men. However, from 2017 to 2022, there is a huge rise of female gamers in the digital gaming market. Earlier, the games were designed for attracting male gamers like the avatars, costumes, etc in MMORPGs. Now lots of top companies are investing tons of money in attracting female gamers. Surprisingly, most of the female gamers are adult women who are in their thirties. Meanwhile in males, most of the gamers are teenagers and young adults. All statistics show that the digital gaming industry will get a good hit in upcoming years.
