A lot has happened since Newzoo published last year’s Global Games Market Report. The market continued to recover and grow, but significant growth remains elusive. Layoffs and consolidation partially overshadowed the explosive number of hit releases.
Earlier this year, Newzoo reported that quarterly average playtime has dropped by a head-turning -26% since Q1 2021 and that only 66 titles accounted for 80% of playtime in 2023.
The global games market
From 2021 to 2022, games market revenues shrank, though we now define it as a recovery year for the industry. The market stabilized in 2022 and started to grow again in 2023. Newzoo’s final calculation shows that the global games market generated $183.9 billion in 2023 with +0.5% year-on-year growth (a slight downward correction from our last update in January).
You can explore this topic further in the May 2024 Global Games Market Report 2023 update.
The US and China accounted for 50% of all consumer spending on games in 2023
Across the world, nearly every region that Newzoo covers experienced PC and console gaming market growth in 2023. The US and China accounted for a whopping 50% of all consumer spending on games, with US consumers spending well over $46 billion.
Most new players entering the PC and console space will come from emerging gaming markets. Player growth in emerging markets, which include Latin America, Central and Southern Asia, and Southeast Asia, along with MENA, will outpace growth in established markets by 23 times for PC and double for console.
Global games market revenues will reach $207.0 billion in 2026
Despite the challenges that PC and console gaming face this year, with mobile gaming also dealing with its own set of issues, we’re actually optimistic about the market (in 2025 especially). The market will grow by over 6% YoY (forecasted) in 2025, and that’s slightly higher than we estimated in past versions of the report.
