Smartphone and tablet gaming will account for 45% of the global market in 2019, where 80% of the mobile game revenue is from smartphones.
(Newzoo, 2019)
Complete Video Game Industry Overview
100 Impressive Video Game Industry Statistics, Trends & Data in 2020
We present the latest video game statistics & trends for 2020
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Today you’re going to learn everything about the gaming industry and its fascinating statistics.
In fact, it took us over a hundred hours to complete this list of the latest data for 2020.
The gaming industry has become one of the wealthiest of all entertainment industries in the 21st century.
That includes the film and music sector as well. Not only that but with a quite significant margin.
In this article, we’ll provide insights on the must-know stats, trends, market size & growth estimates in the gaming & esport scenes.
Feel free to use any of our images, but if you do, make sure to link back to us at GamingFeature.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:
Global Gaming Statistics
Global video games industry statistics
Global game revenues is estimated to be $196 billion in 2022 compared to $152.1 billion in 2019.
(Newzoo, 2019)
There are over 2.4 billion gamers worldwide in 2019 and is expected to be over 2.6 billion by 2020.
(Statista, 2019)
China has approximately 600 million gamers alone, nearly two times the entire population of the U.S.
(Niko, 2018)
China and the U.S. combined will account for 48% of all consumer spending on games during 2019.
(Newzoo Global Games Market Report, 2019)
The games that generated the most revenue on Steam were priced at $30 (25% of all revenue) and $60 (18% of all revenue.)
(SteamSpy 2017)
For the first time since 2015, the U.S. has overtaken China as the largest market for games revenue. With a small margin - partly because of PlayStation and Xbox sales.
(Newzoo Global Games Market Report, 2019)
Global Games Market 2020
Mobile gaming has gone from the smallest segment in 2012 to the largest gaming market in the world.
Hardware revenue was up 8% across the board in 2018. Mainly from Switch, PS4 and Xbox One consoles.
(NPD report 2018)
While mobile gaming is the world’s largest market, the console will be the fastest-growing segment in 2019 by 13.5% growth.
(Business Reviewr, 2019)
10.7 million people attended a virtual Marshmello concert in Fortnite, and over 40 million watched the official recap on Youtube.
(The Verge, 2019)
25% of iOS apps and 21% of Android apps are gaming apps. However, 78% of the global mobile gaming market is from Android.
(GO-Globe, 2018)
The PC gaming market is the slowest growing segment. With 1.2 billion PC gamers worldwide in 2017, it's expected to hit 1.4 billion PC gamers by 2021.
(Statista, 2019)
The VR (virtual reality) market is expected to hit $13.7 billion in 2022, from $3.3 billion in 2018.
(Super Data Research, 2019)
Companies Game Revenues
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are accounting for 38% of the combined revenue generated by the top 25 companies.
(Game Industry, 2019)
Tencent has had problems releasing Fortnite & PUBG in China due to stricter games regulations on monetizing in-game purchases. Still, 25% of their revenue came from smartphone games during 2018.
(WalkTheChat, 2019)
Cloud Gaming Statistics 2020
Google is investing heavily in Cloud Gaming and will be expanding its project ‘Stadia’ to other countries and regions in 2020. Both Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia are all developing their own cloud gaming services.
(Statista, 2019)
Instead of using hardware, cloud gaming stream the videogame from the cloud. Estimating a 900% increase in value between 2017 and 2023.
(PC Gamer, 2019)
Cloud gaming is estimated to be valued $450 million in 2023, from $45 million in 2017.
(Statista, 2019)
Chapter 2:
DLC & Microtransactions Market Statistics 2020
Downloadable content & microtransactions are taking over
Additional content created for an already released video game (DLC) is now the most significant form of game monetization.
DLC (downloadable content) have tripled the value of the game industry. Consumers are less willing to pay $60 for a boxed game and instead choose titles with a steady stream of new content.
(Digital River, 2017)
Almost 90% said that they had opened a loot box in a video game, with more than half spending money on them and about a third reporting to have sold a loot box item.
(BBC, 2019)
Out of 312.4 million PC online gamers in China, 79.7 million of them spend money inside games in 2018.
(Niko, 2019)
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds had $920 million in revenue and $310 million in profit during 2018. Where 53% of the revenue comes from Asia.
(PC Gamer, 2019)
Epic Games, the creators of Fortnite banked a $3 billion profit in 2018 from mostly DLC monetization.
(TechCrunch, 2018)
Almost 69% of gamers said that cosmetic microtransactions are an acceptable form of monetization.
(Qutee Gaming Today, 2018)
80% of the total digital games revenue came from free-to-play games in 2018.
(Superdata, 2019)
48% of the revenue from free-to-play games came from paid in-game items and DLCs.
(GDC, 2019)
Revenue from PC free-to-play microtransactions doubled from 2012 to 2017.
(PC Gamer, 2017)
About 0.15% of mobile gamers contribute 50% of all of the in-app purchases generated in free-to-play games.
(VentureBeat, 2014)
Chapter 2:
PC Gaming Statistics 2020
What’s the state of PC Gaming in 2020
PC games market are predicted to generate $37.4 billion in profits in 2021 and to have 21% of the global games market, down from 23% in 2019.
(VentureBeat, 2018)
There will be an estimated 354 million PC gamers in China by 2023. More than the entire population of the U.S.
(PC Gamer, 2019)
China has 138,000 internet cafes and is an important part of Chinese online gaming.
(Niko, 2019)
PC Games Stats 2020
47% of game developers sell their games on Steam. Publisher-owned storefronts like Battle.net, only accounts for 18% of sales.
(State of the Game industry, 2019)
66% of game studios are currently making games for PC.
(GDC, 2019)
The free-to-play game Apex Legends reached 1 million players 8 hours after release and 24 hours to reach 2.5 million. After one month it had over 50 million registered players.
(PC Games N, 2019)
PUBG had at the highest 2.3 million concurrent players in 2018, so far just above 1 million in 2019. Mainly because of more competition in the battle royale genre.
(Steam, 2019)
Chapter 3:
Console Gaming Statistics 2020
What’s the state of Console Gaming in 2020
Console games market is predicted to generate $55.2 billion in profits in 2021 and to have 31% of the global games market.
(Newzoo, 2019)
Switch vs PS4 vs Xbox One Market Share
Sony's PlayStation 4 sold 20 million units in 2018. There are now over 84.9 million PlayStation 4 consoles in the world.
(Business Insider, 2019)
Compared to PS4, Microsoft's Xbox One console has sold 39.4 Million globally.
(Gadgets 360, 2019)
Nintendo reports that 18 million Switch units have been sold in 2018. With a total of 21.5 million consoles in the world.
(Business Insider, 2019)
The PlayStation 4 has a 58% market share, the Xbox One sits at 27%, and the Switch 15%.
(VG Chartz, 2019)
Chapter 4:
Mobile Gaming Statistics 2020
What’s the state of Mobile Gaming in 2020
Mobile games market are predicted to generate $85.5 billion in profits in 2021 and to have 48% of the global games market, up from 45% in 2019.
(Newzoo, 2019)
2.4 Billion People Globally Expected to Play Mobile Games in 2019, out of 3.5 billion active smartphones users.
(Activision Blizzard Media, 2018)
Gaming is the second most popular app category for 18-20-year-olds, where 2/3 have played a game in the last seven days. The most popular app is social media.
(Betting on Billions, 2018)
From app revenue in 2018, gaming apps accounted for 74% of the total revenue.
(Influencer MarketingHub, 2019)
Mobile games account for 33% of app installs and 10% of the time users spend in apps.
(TechCrunch, 2019)
In 2019 there will be 209.5 million U.S. mobile gamers, predicting to be 213 million by 2020.
(Statista, 2019)
From the most recent data available, the average U.S. consumer spent $77.60 on Mobile Games in 2016.
(Statista, 2016)
Mobile Operating System Market Stats 2020
1.60+ million games launched on Google Play and 1.1+ million on iOS in 2018.
(TechCrunch, 2019)
74 cents of every dollar is spent on games on Android, where 95% are from in-app purchases.
(App Annie, 2019)
iOS have a 28% share of worldwide downloads of apps, but still got 64% of consumer spending in 2018.
(App Annie, 2019)
The number one Android market is China, with 803 million active smartphones.
(Newzoo, 2019)
62% of people install a game on their phone within a week of owning it.
(GO-Globe, 2019)
25% of iOS and 21% of the Android downloaded apps are games. However, 78% of mobile gamers are in the Android game market.
(GO-Globe, 2019)
45% of the global games market revenue is from mobile & tablet games, compared to 32% of console and 23% of PC gaming.
(GO-Globe, 2019)
95.9% of all current smartphones are Android in India, a total of 430 million units.
(Newzoo, 2019)
Mobile Gaming Market Stats 2020
Players have spent 73 billion hours or 8.3 million years playing Candy Crush Saga since its launch in 2012.
(Metro, 2019)
Puzzle games are the most popular gaming genre by penetration, with a 57%. Arcade has 55% and Action games 34%.
(Go-Globe, 2018)
In 2018, there were 1,900 games that made more than $5 million, up from 1,200 in 2016.
(Tech Crunch, 2019)
The quickest game to reach 100 million iOS downloads is Super Mario Run in just 68 days. Compared to Fortnite 138 days.
(Apptopia, 2018)
In the U.S. the regular user has 8 games installed per device, globally users plays an average 2-5 games per month.
(App Annie, 2019)
63% of iOS Fortnite players are aged 18-24, while 23% are aged 25-34. 72% of the Fortnite iOS mobile players are men.
(Verto, 2019)
Chapter 5:
Video Game Streaming Statistics 2020
Video streaming industry growth in 2020
Twitch viewers live-streamed a total of 72.2% of all live hours watched. Almost 4X more hours watched than YouTube Live.
(StreamElements, 2019)
75% of all Twitch's viewership is from the top 5000 channels, which got 2 billion of the total 2.7 billion hours watched.
(StreamElements, 2019)
Twitch has an average of 12,982 streamers per day, compared to YouTube Live's 4,505 streamers per day.
(newzoo, 2019)
The top 200 channels have the highest concurrent viewership on Twitch, with an average 10,590 people watching live.
(Tech Crunch, 2019)
Fortnite, currently the number one streamed game on Twitch in terms of watch hours, got 300,421,343 watched hours in Q2 2019.
(Tech Crunch, 2019)
Twitch vs YouTube Live Hours Watched 2020
YouTube Live streamers streams for 21 minutes on average, while Twitch streamers streams for 29.8 minutes on average.
(newzoo, 2019)
However, when it comes to not-live watched hours of gaming content, YouTube is still king. In 2018, YouTube accumulated more than 50 billion watched hours of gaming content.
(The Verge, 2019)
Chapter 6:
Esport Statistics 2020
Esport viewership & prize pools are getting huge
Over 2.3 million concurrent viewers across YouTube and Twitch watched the Fortnite World Cup, the most-watched competitive gaming event (excluding China) of all time.
(Epic Games, 2019)
Esports leagues and events generate 11% of all viewed hours on YouTube and Twitch.
(Visual Capitalist, 2019)
34.3% of all esports revenue streams come from sponsorships, in 2019 that's $456.7 million in revenue.
(newzoo, 2019)
The total audience size worldwide of esports is 453.8 million in 2019, compared to 395 million in 2018.
(Filmora, 2019)
The most valuable esport company is Cloud9, worth about $310 million. With a total of 11 esport teams and 92 professional players.
(Esportearning.com, 2018)
In 2018 people watched 6.6 billion hours of esports videos worldwide, an increase of about 1 billion hours from 2017.
(Influencer Marketinghub, 2019)
Game developer Blizzard signed a broadcasting deal with Disney to broadcast Overwatch League playoffs on ESPN, ABC, and Disney XD.
(Visual Capitalist, 2019)
Esports vs Sports Prize Pools 2020
The 16-year-old professional player & champion “Bugha” in Fornite World Cup 2019 won $3 million, more than Tiger Woods at the Masters.
(Engadget, 2019)
Dota 2 tournament The International 2019 surpassed $30 million in prize pool and remains the biggest esports event in the world.
(The Verge, 2019)
CS:GO has had a total prize money of $80 million in 4197 tournaments, while Fortnite has had total prize money of $71 million in just 386 tournaments.
(esportsearnings.com, 2019)
Chapter 7:
Gamers Demographic Statistics 2020
Demographic & age of gamers in 2019
Video games are now the biggest entertainment industry in the U.S. based on consumer spending in 2018.
(Statista, 2019)
Distribution of all PC & video gamers in the U.S. is 54% men and 46% women in 2019.
(Statista, 2019)
Unlike PC gaming, 51% of all mobile gamers are women and 49% men.
(Betting on Billions, 2018)
In the U.S. alone, 64% of the general population are gamers.
(Nielsen, 2017)
In China, 52% of core PC gamers are playing PUBG.
(Newzoo, 2018)
In France, 29% of core PC gaming enthusiasts choose to play Fortnite.
(Newzoo, 2018)
56% of gamers in the U.S. play multiplayer games at least once a week, and 55% says that video games help them connect with their friends.
(ESA, 2018)
Age of Video Gamers Statistics 2020
The average age of male gamers is 33 years old.
(Entertainment Software Association, 2017)
On the other hand, the average age of female gamers is 37 years old.
(Entertainment Software Association, 2017)
About 16% of gamers under 24 have made video game purchases, followed by 14% of gamers aged 25-27 and 12% of those aged 28-30.
(Earnest, 2019)
Gamers age 18 or older represent 79% of the video game-playing population, and the average gamer is 35 years old.
(Theesa, 2018)
That’s it!
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