2022 will be the first year in a long time that the global gaming market will shrink. That’s what market researchers say. The sales figures had been rising steadily for many years, the sales in 2020 and 2021 were particularly high due to corona-related lockdowns, but the trend breaks in 2022. It will be a corrective year. Sales on PlayStation, Xbox and Mobile are shrinking.
What market researchers say: According to market researchers from Newzoo, the gaming market will shrink in 2022 compared to 2021. It is estimated:
What are these numbers based on? Newzoo says they analyzed the financial results of 150 publicly traded companies for the first six months of calendar year 2022.
MeinMMO at gamescom 2022 – These are our highlights
After 2 very hot years, 2022 will be a rather cold year in gaming
What is the shrinkage? Newzoo says: 2022 is a “corrective year” because the gaming market was fueled so much in 2020 and 2021 by the lockdowns as a result of fighting the global corona pandemic:
Consoles and mobile shrink – PC grows slightly
Where is gaming not breaking in? According to Newzoo, PC gaming will not collapse in 2022, but will grow slightly by 0.5% compared to 2021.
This is because PC gaming is not as dependent on hits as other platforms: the top games would run on the PC for years. China and Japan would continue to grow.
Who is hit hard? According to Newzoo, the contraction will hit the mobile market hardest: Compared to 2021, the market would shrink by 6.4%.
In the second half of 2021 in particular, people would have invested a lot of money in mobile gaming, which is no longer expected at Newzoo in the second half of 2022.
The console market is also looking down by 4.2%.
The 1st shrinkage since the beginning of recording
What is special about this shrinkage? The special thing is that the market researchers can’t really say when the gaming market last shrank.
Newzoo says the gaming market is now shrinking for the first time on a yearly basis since records began. The company has been around since 2007.
Another market researcher, the group Ampere Analytics, had already released data in July 2022 showing that the gaming market more than doubled from $95 billion in 2015 to $191 billion in 2021, in just 6 years.
Ampere Analytics said that gaming is not immune to economic turmoil such as inflation or recession. It is “inevitable” that gaming will be negatively affected. However, games still offer great value for money and as such gaming is arguably protected from the worst effects of a global market slowdown.
Overall, however, the market researchers believe that the shrinkage in 2022 is only an exception, in principle gaming will continue to grow.
Maybe gaming will grow in 2023 with these MMORPGs:
4 new MMORPGs that will definitely be released in 2023