Market Research for Game Developers
Lars Wobus
Senior Animation Programmer @3D Interaction Technologies // I bring your 3D models to life on the web, desktop and mobile devices
Foreword
Only a few people already know that I have started a second master study on the subject of Games and XR Management at the private University of Applied Sciences in Dresden.
In this new course of study, students should ideally bring their own product idea to market maturity. People from various industries are on hand to act as advisors. Some subjects are organized as workshops, others as usual lessons.
In the Digital & Data Driven Marketing seminar we have to compare our future product with similar products, do a market analysis and so on.
Many indie developers fail because they don't do market analysis. As a passionate programmer, I can understand why people like to skip this task.
Today and in the future I would like to share my research results with the community. On the one hand, to give designers and developers an idea of what marketing specialists do, and on the other hand, of course, to refine my seminar work.
Research Results
(The following excerpt is a first intermediate state. It may contain errors!)
Various sources1 2? have forecast revenues of over $200 billion for the video games industry worldwide in 2022. In fact, however, as can be seen below, this threshold was only just missed. However, if the forecasts for the coming years are not too far from reality, according to 3, revenue in the video game industry could even double by 2030.
The website bankmycell.com, which in turn refers to Grand Review Research, Statista, Newzoo and other sources, states that the market for mobile games accounts for just over half of the market at $103.5 billion?. The market for console games, on the other hand, took in $53 billion last year?. The market for PC games follows close behind, with $40.4 billion.
If we concentrate on the market for strategy games, Statista? made a forecast of $24.6 billion dollars for the year 2022. It was assumed that $15.73 billion will be generated by in-app purchases alone. $8.78 billion, on the other hand, are attributed to advertising revenues. This means that only $0.09 billion is attributed to the sale of apps. According to the same forecast, revenue will grow to around $35.88 billion in 2027.
The reason for the projected growth in revenues for the whole video game industry could be the growing number of new players. Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa in particular still appear to have huge growth potential?. The steady expansion of the digital infrastructure and the relatively inexpensive access to smartphones as opposed to home devices are only some reasons.
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These figures suggest that the mobile games market in particular will continue to grow and that gamers are becoming less and less willing to buy apps for entertainment on their phones. However, this trend does not necessarily mean that one has to follow it blindly. On the one hand, many game development companies will focus on the mobile gaming segment, but only a few will be able to retain a large enough player base to generate high profits through in-app purchases. On the other hand, PC and console games will continue to find their enthusiasts for some time. The mere fact that the hardware market also continues to grow? leads me to conclude that the market for PCs and perhaps also stationary consoles will continue to exist for a few more years.
So mobile games will probably never be able to completely displace desktop games, unless certain game changers occur in the near future. My gut feeling is that issues such as energy scarcity, lack of resources, climate change and recycling could prompt politicians to regulate our consumer behavior. But first, an awareness of sustainability would have to emerge throughout the world's population.
For the sake of completeness, I would like to mention that Statista? forecasts a turnover of $31.12 billion for the AR and VR market in 2023 and a turnover of $52.05 billion in 2027. However, if one considers that not only games but also learning applications, product visualizations, digital tools and others are included, it can be assumed that the necessary hardware is still ignored by many players.
In summary, it can be predicted that the market volume for video games will continue to grow in the coming years due to a steadily increasing demand for new entertainment software.
(This was a first excerpt of my research results so far. As some may already guess, I am planning to develop a strategy game for PCs (besides my main job by the way), although the mobile game market sounds more tempting.)
Sources
That's it for today.
What do you think about today's topic? Would you like to learn more about my study progress and get more impressions about marketing methods? Or would you prefer that I write articles about programming in #Unity as I have in the past?
If you are interested in topics like?#gamedesign and #gamedevelopment, project organization or software design patterns, don't forget to press the?Follow?button on?my profile page?or add me as a contact. Not convinced yet? Well, maybe you will be once you read some of my?other articles.