Newzoo Cuts Games Revenue Forecast for 2024 to $187.7bn

As in previous years, Newzoo has released an update to its Global Games Market Report ahead of gamescom. The PC segment surprises with the highest growth, but Newzoo expects console gaming to boom in 2025 thanks to the Switch successor and top releases such as GTA VI.

In its first annual forecast for 2024, Newzoo puts the global games industry's expected revenue at $189.3 billion. In its traditional pre-Gamescom update, the Dutch company revised this figure to $187.7 billion. This is a relatively minor revision. The trend of the overall forecast has therefore not changed.

With the new figure, the global games market will grow by 2.1 per cent this year. As always, the development in the individual segments and regions varies considerably. According to Newzoo, the biggest growth will be in PC games. Turnover in this segment is expected to increase by 4.0 per cent compared to the previous year to 43.2 billion dollars. It is therefore still just under half the size of the mobile games segment, which is expected to achieve a 3.0 per cent increase in turnover this year. In the console segment, Newzoo is expecting a slight decline. However, this is precisely where the Dutch company expects a boom in 2025, driven by the expected launch of the successor console to the Nintendo Switch, as well as the release of exceptional top games, above all "GTA VI".

As usual, Newzoo only provides a very vague insight into the long-term development. Specifically, the Dutch market analysts expect a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4 per cent. This would result in a global sales volume of 213.3 billion dollars for PC, console and mobile games in 2027.

Another part of the report looks at the development of player numbers. Here, Newzoo expects an average annual growth rate of 3.6 per cent. The number of gamers will increase from 3.42 billion people in 2024 to 3.76 billion people in 2027. Newzoo's definition of gamers includes all people who have played on the platform in the last six months. Looking at the platforms, console gamers are in the minority with 630 million. Newzoo expects 908 million people as PC gamers in 2027 and 2.85 billion people as mobile gamers. If we relate the data to the distribution of revenue across the platforms, which is unlikely to change fundamentally, it becomes clear that console gamers generate the most revenue per capita, while mobile gamers generate the least. This trend can be explained by the fundamental differences between the primary business models of pay-to-play and free-to-play on the platforms. The data section is followed by the usual detailed trend analysis, which is not included in the free version. The analyses have the following headlines:

• Cross-platform releases benefit PC the most
• Right-sizing single-player games for today’s market
• Mobile app ecosystems are opening up
• The anatomy of community management and early access
• The future of free-to-play (F2P) games on PC and console
• The state of indie and AA games
• Generative AI in games revisited
• User-generated content (UGC) and the impact of new gaming generations

The report concludes with three special topics, a sales analysis by genre and data on the five regions and 35 countries and markets that Newzoo analyses for the report. In Europe, these are the key markets of the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, as well as Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. This data is also not available in the free version of the report.

"Newzoo's market analysts delve into the key questions that studios must address," adds Michelle van der Wilk-Rouhof, Newzoo CEO. "Understanding the state of the games market is more important now than ever. Newzoo asks big questions and shares independent data and expert insights to provide comprehensive and actionable answers for industry executives." You can download a free copy of the report at Newzoo's Website.

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