Even though we’re nearly in the middle of January, that’s not exactly stopping folks from looking back at 2020 quite yet. Particularly our number crunching friends at SuperData, where a year in review post provided a look at gaming financial trends from last year as well as a few educated guesses at what might happen this year.
Overall, the games and interactive media industry grew by 12%, with free-to-play games making up the lion’s share of earnings at 78% thanks to the Asian gaming market, mobile gaming growing by 10%, and premium game earnings rising by 28%. Other trends of note in gaming was Roblox becoming the third highest-earning digital game of 2020, a 25% year-over-year jump in VR games earnings thanks to Half-Life: Alyx, and gaming video content reaching 1.2 billion viewers thanks to notable events like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s livestream and Among Us rising in popularity.
The wrap-up offers some projections for gaming trends in 2021, noting that the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine will likely not induce a gaming industry crash, a continued divergence in the strategy of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo with regard to their respective gaming consoles and services, and continued consolidation in the industry in order for publishers and developers to find a spot in a competitive market, which will likely be spurred by events such at Microsoft’s buyout of Bethesda and EG7’s purchase of Daybreak Games.
