More Than Half The Population Of Earth Will Be Gaming By 2030, Says New Report

A new report from the American news agency The Associated Press has revealed that according to estimations, nearly 4.5 billion will play video games by 2030. While covering the ongoing legal battle between the FTC and Microsoft, AP News shed some light on the sheer size of the gaming industry, revealing how nearly 3 billion people worldwide spend at least some time in the activity.

Furthermore, the new agency also analyzed the immense monetary power of video games in the current economic climate. Currently, the gaming industry is worth more than both the music and movie industries combined. To put this into perspective, the film industry made $101.22 billion in revenue worldwide while the music industry climbed 9% in revenue to $26.2 billion this year, but gaming is bigger than both put together.

The wrangling over the deal has cast a spotlight on the growing importance of video gaming, a pursuit that has already garnered an estimated of audience of about 3 billion people worldwide who play at least some of the time on a console, personal computer or, increasingly, smartphone. The market is expected to swell to 4.5 billion people by 2030.”

In 2022, the gaming industry made $184.4 billion in revenue, which if you do the maths is substantially more than the value of the worldwide box office, music streaming, NBA, and the NFL combined. When you consider how popular all of these industries are around the globe, the power gaming holds becomes even more apparent.

Moreover, according to a report from Newzoo last year, the industry will continue to grow even further at least until 2025. As per the website, which expertises in the gaming market, gaming will grow by 3.5% every year until 2025. Hence, the gap between the world’s most popular hobby and other entertainment ventures is only going to grow as time passes by.

The increase in the supply of ninth-gen consoles, namely PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, is one major factor in this growth. Since the start of 2023, PlayStation 5 has been selling like hotcakes worldwide. In the first quarter alone, it broke several records and topped 38 million unit sales around the globe. Furthermore, the console’s sales in Europe skyrocketed by 369% year-on-year in 2023 as compared to last year.

On the other hand, even though Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S have had a slower start to this year, the console has shipped over 20 million units. In addition, with the highly anticipated upcoming launch of Starfield, the console is bound to become more relevant in the gaming world. The Nintendo Switch is already selling brilliantly and has been in the top two of the global market once again.

Moreover, with the rumored release of the Japanese company’s next-gen hardware, the overall value of the gaming industry is only going to go up. Even though mobile gaming saw a small decline in 2022, the platform is the key to achieving this 4.5 billion player total. And, with companies like Microsoft making big moves like the Activision acquisition to venture into mobile gaming, the platform only gets more valuable.