Today, there is probably no person on Earth who has not tried to play computer games at least once. Meanwhile, even until the early 2000s, it was predominantly a niche market focused on children and teenagers.
The videogames market has experienced incredible growth in recent years, with the development of more advanced gaming systems and a whole range of games aimed at entertaining players. This has also led to an increase in the number of casual gamers, as playing is no longer restricted to hardcore gamers or expensive consoles.
Mobile gaming, for example, has enabled a massive expansion of the market by making video games more affordable and accessible than ever before. Thanks to advances in app technology and cloud-gaming platforms that are available across multiple devices, people from all walks of life can now enjoy a variety of games that was previously unavailable to them.
Developers have responded by producing well-crafted productions tailored just for this growing audience, leading to even greater opportunities for expanded growth within the industry. The global video game market size was valued at USD 195.65 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach US$365.60bn in 2023, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.9%.
Despite the huge size of the market and good prospects for further growth, not all sectors of the industry can boast only growing dynamics. For example, the market for video consoles (such as Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo), on the contrary, has been shrinking in recent years, and game publishers have noted a decline in sales of game discs.
I decided to analyze this market and understand:
- When and why this market began to shrink?
- Which games and what genres received the most popularity among gamers and critics?
- Which games sold the best?
- Whether there is a difference in the reviews of games by users and critics?
- Why the Playstation2 was more popular than the PS3 and PS4?
- How ratings and reviews influence game sales, and more.
