The Games Industry: A Market To Be Reckoned With

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We’re currently in the midst of a widespread shift in investment towards a host of new and emergent technologies – in light of this, new industries are experiencing double-digit growth and a new range of challenger corporations are beginning to displace the giants of yesteryear. Many of these new industries are a reflection of emerging sectors, be it machine-learning, or green energy. 

Though there’s no denying that one of the perennial factors driving industry growth is consumer appetite, of which the global games industry is perhaps the chief example one can point to today. Below we’re going to be exploring the rise of the games industry, and look at why it appears to have supplanted rival sectors as the leading entertainment category in the 2020s.
 

The New Media King

The games industry has been experiencing extremely impressive growth for a number of years. If one looks back to the beginning of the 21st century, we can see that the industry was worth around $25 billion globally, which was roughly on a par with both the music and film industries at the time. Since then, while the music industry has remained at a similar level, the film industry has experienced reliable growth and is now double the size as of 2021 when compared with 2001, and now sits at a rough valuation of $51 billion globally. With the sector pivoting towards ever bigger budget films such as those belonging to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a franchise that commands an extraordinary revenue in of itself, it’s easy to see how this room for growth has developed. 

This makes the fact of the games industry’s own growth over this same time window extremely note-worthy. As of 2021, the global games industry now grasps a revenue of $180 billion – an increase of 620% over 20 years. The games industry surpassed the rival entertainment sectors of the music and film industry in 2006 and never looked back. 
 

Diversity and Broad Appeal

There are many reasons for this phenomenal growth. For one, those belonging to the young professional demographic grew up with games as a normal part of their lives, as such the fact that they are less resistant to spending their discretionary income on costly games and home consoles should come as no surprise. In the same time-frame, segments such as the iGaming market have experienced reliable growth, and remain today among the fastest growing sub-sectors belonging to this wider industry. 

In the UK alone, for example, the iGaming industry is valued at over £5 billion a year. The rise of reputable comparison platforms such as VegasSlotsOnline, which brings together a directory of the leading online casinos available in the region, is a key example of how the sector is maturing. This platform finds itself in a position where it can run compelling promotions on the best casino bonuses and sign-up offers for UK players, reducing friction for uptake among new prospective consumers and improving the organic reach of the sector among gaming aficionados of all stripes.
 

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The Rise of the Esports Craze

More recently, we have begun to witness the arrival on the world stage of the global esports phenomenon. Esports, a name coined in the year 2000 to refer to competitive gaming tournaments held through the strategy game Starcraft in South Korea, has quickly come to be the preferred term for the wider competitive video games sector. While the name may be relatively recent, the history of esports dates back to the earliest days of gaming with small competitions being held on arcade classics like Space War and Pong as early as the late 1970s. Google Trends points to a growth in searches for the term “esports” by over 500% over the past 10 years, as interest and appetite for the community began to grow beyond its historic confines. 

Greater availability of gaming laptops, the rising profile of Amazon-owned game streaming network Twitch, and the growing import of social media have all been sighted as contributors to its growth. When the unprecedented global events of 2020 struck, esports found itself primed for mainstream success. A wave of necessary cancellations hit the traditional sports industry, and the nascent esports scene found itself perfectly positioned to capture market share in the wave of these disruptions.