The video game industry is talking to us!

It is common to see that when someone or something does well, their behavior automatically becomes the object of study and analysis, in order to identify patterns and good practices that can later be assimilated in other settings and thus become a piece of the success of others.

Precisely that continued success in the video game industry led us to put a magnifying glass on the business, in order to see that we discovered a simple view:

120 Billions of dollars are the estimated income of the Video Game Industry in 2019 as reported by “Nielsen Media Research” (NMR), which is an American firm that measures media audiences.

199 billion are the predicted earnings odds for 2022 according to Kevin Webb in his article on the businessinsider.com portal.

In fact, the video game with the highest income in 2019 is "Fornite", which surpasses most of the box office movies of that year with its income of 1,800 million dollars, except "Avengers: Endgame", which reported more than 2,797 million in income, having had this movie a budget of 356 million and its ability to generate new income is drastically reduced each year, with the difference that creating Fornite, it is estimated that it cost close to 50 million dollars (Quora) and annually its renovation, maintenance are continuous with costs they tend to be less than the initial investment.

Will Fortnite be an isolated case? What is the first message of the video game industry?

According to the last study of 2020 presented by globalwebindex.com, which bears the name: “THE WORLD OF GAMING”, it presents us that at least 50% of video game players chose to download a free video game or Free2play, 45% of Video game players play with real life friends, 18% paid a video game for an online store or digital platform, in addition to another 13% who paid to download content for their video game and 16% paid for a physical video game.

If the message is still unclear, what about the profits generated by the most famous video game platforms whose strategy is Free-to-play.

Taking the 10 highest-grossing free games (Fornite, Dungeon Fighter Online, Honor of King, League of Legends, Candy Crush, Pokémon go, Crossfire, Fate, PUBG Mobile, and Last Shelter) we find that the sum of everyone's revenue generated 14,300 million dollars in sales, with an average of 1,430 million per video game in 2019.

As if that were not enough the evolution of this business with such a level of sales, has given way in its ranks of fans to a new generation of heroes who have nothing to envy the fans in sports, let's look at some figures: the Soccer Player " Cristiano Ronaldo "of 35 years, in his last contract he got as an annual salary the payment of 35 million dollars without including sponsorships, now on the videogames side the number 1 of 2019 that is named Johan? N0tail ?of just 24 years, closed the year with income of 15.6 million (without sponsorship), although it has not yet reached in income the best footballer, the truth is that today it almost doubles the average income of baseball players of the highest paid team in the MLB the Chicago CUBS in 2019, which raises the question, How long does it take for a professional video game player to equalize in income to a professional soccer player?

The truth is that the results of this industry may lead other industries to rethink their business model.

Perhaps the Free-to-play strategy breaks with the traditional paradigm and responds conveniently to new generations. Perhaps millennials are not very willing to pay large amounts of money for a product that, even being a reputable brand, does not guarantee them any satisfaction, in addition to concentrating all the risk on the buyer, something different when the offer begins with the possibility of having a sample of the new product even in a basic version, allowing this to get an idea of what the complete experience will be like.

On the other hand we see how mobility is the way. the traditional consoles perhaps in a couple of years will become like the old PCs, making any product that agrees with the mobility of the user have greater acceptance. Since 2016, PCs and Laptos have lost ground as a space for video games and now the first place is held by smartphones that dominate the field with 71% of user preference, what we see is a consumer who wants to have mobility , immediate access to what he likes, seeks to feel free to choose what to do, where and when he wants, why wait to get home to see a good movie or play a little on the net?

However, the success of the business model does not believe that it is only due to Free-to-play, mobility, how immediate and accessible it is to play video games, there is more and perhaps it is that reality sometimes requires an escape towards fun , perhaps that is why 61% of those who play do it for fun, and that escape is provided by these products, perhaps it is valid to say that the casinos of the past are today's video games, a virtual place where you manage to be a consecrated fighter or a successful warrior.

Today playing video games is becoming a motivation generator, either because of your position in the ranking, for the possibility of playing with your friends (38% of the players see sharing with their friends as a reason to play), for the endless battles and adventures you can have, this without forgetting that fun and victories in a few hours of play can help disconnect you from the existing frustration, perhaps all this is a powerful reason that responds in part to the constant growth of this business.

As if this were not enough, we see that the world market deeply connects with the new generations of consumption, to the point that in an annual final of Overwatch League (a video game) it reaches the number of attendance of 20,000 fans practically the same number of attendance than an NBA final, and this to see teams compete.

Reality has changed and this industry gives us an x-ray of what an important part of new consumers wants, we talk about: Freedom, mobility, easy access, contact and experience with the product, fun, sharing with friends and perhaps admiring a caste of new athletes (GAMERS) who are closer, more real and similar to the consumer than the deified professional players of traditional sports.