2020. The Year Of The Games.
The Booming Economy of Competitive Online Gaming in the Pandemic Era.
As we’ve mentioned time and time again, 2020 has been an incredibly jarring year for the global marketplace.
Yet, within the confusion of navigating this new and unfamiliar frontier, one industry has been building momentum.
As of 2018, Video Games generated sales totaling $134.9 billion worldwide.
Today, that figure stands closer to $160 billion, with a projected $200 billion in generated sales by 2023, according to a published reuters report on Newzoo’s projections.
Furthermore, the largest growth sector is in mobile gaming, with many internet cafes closed during the pandemic and the accessibility to mobile devices growing.
According to Newzoo senior market analyst Tom Wijman, mobile gaming alone will account for $77.2 billion in revenue in 2020, an increase of 13.3% from 2019.
Why am I telling you this?
If you’ve recently considered a new career path in lieu of the coronavirus pandemic, then there’s hardly been a more opportune time to acquire a new trade within the gaming industry.
In this article, I’ve rounded up the key market trends, job opportunities and the industry forecast in order to get you up to speed.
Job Opportunities
No other industry has pushed the boundaries of technology and entertainment like the gaming industry has.
This includes massive jobs potential for multimedia artists and animators alike.
According to IBISWorld, employment more than doubled for video game employees in the U.S. from 124,403 in 2010 to 241,389 in 2020. By that same report, annualized growth between 2015 and 2020 was at a stable 5%.
Furthermore, if you google the top rated jobs of 2020 you’re most likely going to see ‘Software Developer’ at the head of every top ten list.
In fact, employment in this field alone is expected to grow 26% by 2028, adding 241,500 jobs.
But Software Developers represent only a fraction of the positions available in today’s job market. Below are just a few examples and titles to consider and their growth projections:
“Our lives are invariably becoming more digital. This is less an argument and more a fact of life.”
Ancillary Jobs Market
Very rarely do you see the level of engagement and interaction between producers and consumers than you do with game developers and the 2.5 billion active gamers worldwide.
This engagement, along with the advent of live-streaming, self-produced content on dedicated platforms like YouTube and Twitch, has fueled a burgeoning subindustry of content creators while giving rise to the professional gamer.
As gaming companies continue to innovate in order to maintain this unprecedented growth, they’ve adopted monetization strategies from other sectors.
- This includes the move from single-player, offline console/PC gaming to single- or multi-player online and mobile gaming which has opened up opportunities for gaming-as-a-service (GaaS).
Apart from initial game sales, these services including in-game purchases, downloadable content, season passes, and eSports, already comprise more than 40% of total revenues for some gaming companies.
The Forecast
When looking to the future, it’s important to keep an eye on 3 Key trends:
- Cloud-based streaming will become more mainstream.
- eSports will be a contributing growth factor.
- Confidence in growth will increase overall investment.
According to an EY Report, investment in video game companies was US$5.8b in 2018 and has already crossed US$3.8b in the first half of 2019.
The battle for content in an industry flush with cash is rapidly changing game development funding. Developers currently find themselves in a much stronger position to negotiate financing upfront and achieve more favorable revenue sharing at the backend.
In a recent survey of 236 gaming executives, it was determined that Cloud-based streaming and eSports are poised to be the next big disrupt.
- As Amazon Inc. enters the field with Luna, its in-house, cloud-based gaming platform, 68% of video gaming executives say that cloud-based or streaming games will be the dominant form of games in five years while 63% say they will be at a competitive disadvantage in five years if they don’t provide cloud-based gaming titles.
- eSports is an intriguing cross-section for the strategic and financial investor, including those on behalf of media and entertainment companies aiming to access a younger, rapidly growing audience.
Global esports revenues will grow to $1.1 billion in 2020, a year-on-year growth of 15.7%, up from $950.6 million in 2019.
Companies looking to play in the eSports arena are investing in everything from venues, events and teams, to merchandise, sponsorship and media rights.
But as new gaming titles and market entrants proliferate, video gaming companies have an opportunity to use eSports as a platform for their titles to stand-out in an increasingly competitive market.
“Welcome To The Champion’s Club!”
In the word’s of famed streamer and professional gamer, Dr. Disrespect, I’d like to welcome you all to the champion’s club —
The big takeaway from today’s article should be the knowledge that video gaming companies are entering a new era of increased innovation and broadening popularity, but also of slower growth as talent shortages are actually expected to increase within the next five years, giving way to up and coming talent in select fields.
So what are you waiting for? With the future becoming more and more digital by the day, you may yet find yourself in high demand.
Thank You all very much for reading! I hope some you found this topic enlightening. As a gamer myself, this was a fun piece to research and write on and I look forward to keeping you guys posted on my industry trends moving!
For more information on today’s topic, check out our analytics sources:
