No Wonder Mobile Games Bring in Billions of Dollars – 87% of Players Spent Money In-Game Over the Past 6 Months

According to the Global Gamers Study, 87% of players spent money on in-game items over the last six months highlighting the revenue potential of the industry.

The study was conducted between February and May through Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing with a sample size of 74,295 spread across 36 markets.

It shows that 79% of the total online population engaged in gaming in some form. Apart from playing games, people also use gaming for viewing and socializing.

The report shows that age is a key determinant of engagement with games, and Gen Alpha – which the Study classifies as those born in 2010 or later have the highest engagement at 94%.

Engagement gradually declines as age rises and falls to 44% for Baby Boomers who were born between 1944-1964.

The study shows that 27% of respondents viewed esports in the last 12 months – which are almost equally distributed between occasional esports viewers and esports enthusiasts.

The global esports industry generated revenues of just under $1 billion in 2020 which rose to $1.38 billion in 2022. Newzoo expects the industry revenues to rise to $1.86 billion by 2025.

Notably, gaming crypto coins are also popular and MarketsandMarkets expects the global blockchain gaming market to rise to $65.7 billion in 2027 as compared to $4.6 billion in 2022.

Over 50% of Players Spend Money on Video Games

The study shows that more than half of players spent money on video games in the last six months. The highest play-to-pay conversion is on consoles while it is the lowest on mobile games – where most of the games are free to play.

87% of respondents spent money on in-game purchases over the last six months. Of these 34% said that they spent money because of a sale or special offer. Another 34% spend money to unlock extra or exclusive game content while 29% spent money for personalized things and content.

Furthermore, 29% of the money spent was towards in-game currencies while 25% was for expansions or content packs. A quarter of the money was spent on gears.

Notably, global gaming revenues have surged and Statista Market Insights expects them to hit $396.2 billion in 2023. It predicts that game revenues would rise at a CAGR of 7.7% and reach $533 billion by 2027.

Gaming Growth Has Slowed Down

The video game industry saw rapid growth in 2020 and 2021 amid the COVID-19 lockdowns. People turned to gaming and online streaming as most other entertainment avenues were closed.

The gaming industry has been in a growth mode during the last years, with the Covid pandemic that has accelerated global revenues.

Analysts expect the trend to continue, with 321 billion by 2026.

In my opinion, crypto gaming will be part of this growth, as the natural evolution… pic.twitter.com/g8n2a05ym1

— ZERO IKA ️ (@IamZeroIka) May 14, 2023

Netflix for instance added 37 million new subscribers in 2020 and its total paid memberships rose above 200 million.

To put that in perspective, it added 27.8 million subscribers in 2019. However, after the lockdowns were gradually lifted, Netflix’s subscriber growth started to taper down and it added 18.18 million subscribers in 2021 which further fell to a mere 8.9 million in 2022.

Also, last year, Netflix lost subscribers in both the first and second quarters – the first time in a decade that its subscriber count fell.

Netflix meanwhile has taken measures like password sharing crackdown and lower priced ad-supported tier to revive its growth.

The video game industry has also shown signs of stabilization and even as the growth has slowed down – it is still expected to grow at high double digits in the medium term.

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