Video Game Sales Brace For Recession, Industry Predicted To Shrink Due To 'Macroeconmic Turbulence': Report

Mobile gaming is expected to decline by 1.3 percent, PC gaming may decline by 3 percent.

The global gaming market is expected to bounce back in 2023.

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The global games market is predicted to decline this year, as per a study by London-based market research firm Ampere Analytics. The latest outlook from Ampere, published earlier this week, forecast that gaming content and services will decline to $188 billion in 2022, marking a dip of 1.2 percent when compared to 2021’s performance of $191 billion. Macroeconomic factors such as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, supply shortages, and a potential recession are said to leave an adverse effect on the video games industry.

“As we progress through a period of heavy inflation, with an increasing cost-of-living squeeze, and a higher potential for a recession, it is inevitable that the games market will be negatively impacted in certain areas,” the Ampere report noted. 

“The idea that the games market is ‘recession proof’ is a fallacy. However, games remain very good value for money and if consumers dial back on other discretionary spending but are at home more, the sector will be relatively well insulated from some of the worst effects of a global slowdown.”

Ampere predicted that the global market might bounce back in 2023 “as mature markets stabilise and growth markets continue the adoption of gaming.”

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is cited as a primary cause for the recent market meltdown, the county was interestingly the 10th biggest games market in 2021, as per the report. Ampere predicts that the market will lose $1.2 billion in value and drop to the 14th rank in global ranking in 2022. 

The mobile gaming segment is said to decline by 1.3 percent. PC gaming is expected to decline by 3 percent. While console gaming performance is forecast “to be flat,” cloud gaming is expected “to grow strongly.”

“After two years of huge expansion, the games market is poised to hand back a bit of that growth in 2022 as multiple factors combine to undermine performance. Even so, the year will end well ahead of prepandemic performance, and the outlook for the sector as a whole remains positive, with growth forecast to return in 2023,” research director Piers Harding Rolls added.