The latest report published by Hamburg-based market intelligence firm yStats.com, “Europe Digital Gaming Market 2023” summarizes the developments and emerging trends within the digital gaming market in Europe. Some major findings of the report include total sales of video and computer games by countries, the number of digital gamers, as well as the preferred gaming platform across various nations in the European market.
The digital gaming market in Europe is witnessing a boom in the backdrop of the growing popularity of mobile gaming.
The digital gaming industry globally is witnessing emerging trends such as cloud gaming, socializing within gaming, and gaming in the Metaverse. Gamers today want to go beyond just playing games and interacting in games, view gaming-related content, and attend game-related events and exhibitions. The total gaming market revenue has witnessed an increase and is forecasted to grow by a single-digit CAGR between 2022 and 2025, reaching a value of more than EUR 200 billion by 2025, as per the report.
In terms of segments, mobile gaming generated the most revenue in 2022, with revenues reaching billions of euros. Furthermore, mobile gaming also accounted for the highest number of gamers, with more than a billion players. Mobile games also dominated the revenue generation on Google Play Store and iOS as of 2022, with iOS generating a larger share of mobile gaming revenue as compared to the Google Play Store. Europe also witnessed a similar trend, with digital gamers shifting towards mobile gaming. The rise in ownership of mobile devices, the increase in the number of mobile gamers, and the rise in consumer spending on mobile gaming were some of the factors driving the growth of the mobile gaming industry in Europe. The mobile gaming market in Europe was estimated to reach almost EUR 100 billion as of 2022, while also increasing the appeal of mobile gaming among large players such as Netflix, Amazon, Google, and Apple, among others.
Within Europe, countries such as the UK and Germany are at the forefront of the growth of the digital gaming market.
The growing adoption of advanced technology in the gaming market and emerging trends have led to the acceleration of the gaming industry, including the digital gaming market, globally. In Europe, too, the digital gaming industry is constantly growing in terms of revenue and gaming viewership. In the UK, total video game sales reached a value close to EUR 5 billion, with mobile representing the highest revenue-generating segment as of 2022, according to the new yStats.com report. In terms of the most preferred devices for gaming, more than one-third of adults in the UK showed a preference towards smartphones and mobile devices, followed by desktops/laptops as of January 2022.
Furthermore, the UK is also witnessing a rise in gaming in the Metaverse, with nearly two-thirds of Metaverse users claiming gaming to be their most favored activity to do in the Metaverse as of October 2022. With new monetization models such as cloud gaming emerging as a result of rising consumer trends within the digital gaming landscape, the majority of surveyed gamers in the UK indicated their inclination towards cloud gaming instead of purchasing gaming hardware. Moreover, almost three-quarters of gamers in the UK indicated their plans to use popular cloud gaming services such as the Xbox Game Pass as of March 2022, according to the new yStats.com publication.
In Germany, the total computer and video game sales reached a value in the billions of euros as of H1 2022, with in-game/in-app sales accounting for the highest revenue-generating segment. Furthermore, mobile gaming also witnessed a rise in Germany, with most gamers in the age range of 16-29 years using smartphones for gaming, followed by laptops and tablets as of July 2022. Moreover, nearly half of the surveyed gamers in Germany claimed to believe that mobile gaming is getting technically closer to PC and console games in August 2022.
