Gaming Industry In 2023: The Most Promising Sectors

The past decade has seen significant growth in not only gaming as an industry, but as a hobby. 70% of adults in the US play games in some form and the industry has grown to over $229 billion in 2021 with a market size greater than $500 billion by 2028. Gamers have transitioned from a stereotype to the majority of society due to the growth of streaming, major brand partnerships, and mobile gaming. What once was made purely of the hardcore PC and console crowd has been revolutionized by the rise of mobile, with candy crush and puzzle games playing a large role.

The 2020’s are poised to be a massive decade of growth for the gaming industry as a whole, with Web3 gaming playing a crucial role. Square Enix is one of the latest AAA studios to venture into the Web3 space with their recent partnership announcement with Elixir. Players are increasingly looking to free themselves from the confines of licensing agreements and asset ownership is a natural solution. Player ownership of assets doesn’t only empower players with some degree of autonomy from the decisions of developers, but also alters the dynamic between developer and player. Studios are accountable to their playerbases like never before and gamers will see action taken in response to their feedback.

Economics always play a role in the growth of any industry, and gaming seems to be particularly recession resistant. The financial crisis of the late 2000’s provided a massive boost to the gaming industry as price conscious consumers turned to cheaper sources of entertainment. Gaming provides far greater value than other forms of entertainment, and the suffering of the Hollywood box office will be gaming’s gain. The cost per hour of entertainment in gaming frequently comes in under $1 per hour, while more traditional forms of entertainment come in at a much heftier price. Additionally, a large portion of the population turned to gaming during the lockdowns of 2020. While some of these were returning gamers, many were first truly exposed to the hobby during the period of confinement. These recent trends will only accelerate throughout the decade as younger generations who are more familiar with digital entertainment enter the workforce and find themselves in better financial situations with increasing disposable income. 

A new generation of game studios are entering the scene due to the rise of AI and increased capabilities of tools such as Unreal Engine. It is no longer necessary to have a budget of $100 million or more to produce a AAA title and we will see increased creativity and variety of products to serve new niches and demands. Gartner predicted that 70% of new applications would be low code by 2025. While some might contest that many big firms have been using some variant of low code for over a decade, this is heralded as the third generation of low code development that can have a large and immediate impact.