50 Years of Gaming History, by Revenue Stream (1970-2020)
Visualizing 50 years of gaming history, from the first wave of arcades and home consoles to a tsunami of mobile gaming.
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Mobile gaming is bigger than I thought, while consoles and PC are in continuous decline
- Thread starter Ezekiel
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China.
Over 50% of the vidya market is mobile there. Several factors, including the ban on consoles that was lifted only five years ago, created this kind of gaming culture.
Plus it's pretty fun to play vidya on your phone during your commute to work and back (before you-know-what happened and we actually had jobs we went to)
Over 50% of the vidya market is mobile there. Several factors, including the ban on consoles that was lifted only five years ago, created this kind of gaming culture.
Plus it's pretty fun to play vidya on your phone during your commute to work and back (before you-know-what happened and we actually had jobs we went to)
I play fate grand order which is a console game on a phone and I'm enjoying it a ton but most other phone stuff feels too limited for me. Outside of like, card games and whatnot. I legit don't get why more people don't make full-fledged games and make stuff that plays itself or stuff that's like a basic flash game from 20 years ago. Phones can handle Jrpgs and whatnot easily for example but people don't harness them for that.
But yeah FGO has made like 5 billion dollars + in the last 5ish years so it's definitely super profitable and that game's main revenue is actually Japan, not China.
But yeah FGO has made like 5 billion dollars + in the last 5ish years so it's definitely super profitable and that game's main revenue is actually Japan, not China.
If you do that then you'd prolly wanna eat some of the phone numbers too since they definitely are cannibalizing the handheld market way more than the switch is.
Phones are just cheaper and more accessible. Lots of people just want to play casually when they are on the go. AAA studios need a phone department to make huge profits while using that to fund big games imo.
Almost everyone has a smartphone that's capable of running at least limited games these days, so there's an incredibly low barrier of entry there.
I just use phones to play games that I definitely have the license for if you catch my drift. I don't like those stupid gambling phone games and constantly using the touch screen. I just like playing Pokemon on my phone since it makes me feel like I'm using a gameboy.
That graph looks misleading a bit, in that the three biggest markets are stacked on top of each other when it would make more sense if they overlapped. Like PC and console are 40 and 30 billion respectively but visually it looks like PC has about twice as much market share. I suppose we’re supposed to interpret the graph as if these are revenue streams flowing out like a river’s delta.
Mobile isn’t surprising. Pretty much everyone has a cell phone and most have likely spent money on stupid monetizing in crap like Candy Crush for pay to win or whatever. The carriers make it so easy too since it just gets tacked onto your phone bill.
PC and console markets have been and are still growing though, so it’s not as bad as it looks. The graph just shows them getting squeezed down a bit because mobile is so bloody bulbous and exponential by contrast. It’s deceiving because it looks to imply there’s a market cap of some sort.
Another thing I wondered about is the parameters it’s using for cloud gaming, since technically couldn’t any platform with online capabilities also have cloud functionality or services? Or is it strictly dedicated cloud devices or providers? Probably that.
Another thing to consider if that ever takes off -
Mobile isn’t surprising. Pretty much everyone has a cell phone and most have likely spent money on stupid monetizing in crap like Candy Crush for pay to win or whatever. The carriers make it so easy too since it just gets tacked onto your phone bill.
PC and console markets have been and are still growing though, so it’s not as bad as it looks. The graph just shows them getting squeezed down a bit because mobile is so bloody bulbous and exponential by contrast. It’s deceiving because it looks to imply there’s a market cap of some sort.
Another thing I wondered about is the parameters it’s using for cloud gaming, since technically couldn’t any platform with online capabilities also have cloud functionality or services? Or is it strictly dedicated cloud devices or providers? Probably that.
Another thing to consider if that ever takes off -
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I meant comparing the trend over time, if you classified the switch as handheld, then presumably the latest figure for consoles would be lower, which would show a decline since the 2010s. The switch is categorized as a console, but really it's an handheld (can be played on integrated screen without being plugged into a wall), if you consider it a console, then you would have to classify the PSP and PSvita as console too (they could also be plugged into a TV to play on a big screen just like the switch), in which case this the "console" market would also show a decrease, since a large portion of the 2010s handheld revenue would be shifted to consoles then.
Ultimately this show that the revenue from dedicated gaming machine (be they handheld or console) is slowly declining since it's height in the late 2000 early 2010. Although I don't think you can say that this is a results of phone cannibalizing market share. For example, the wii had a lot of people buy a first console, those people didn't stick around (as shown by the incredibly disappointing numbers of the wii U), so the number in late 2000 were probably "artifically" boosted because of that (you can see a big increase after the wii came out). So I imagine that the number of people willing to buy dedicated console year after year (non PC, hardcore gamer) is probably still increasing.
I'd love to see the same graph but inflation adjusted, gaming is becoming very cheap as a hobby, I'd reckon there's far more people gaming now than in 1980 (where the graph show a 20B$ number, which would be something like 60BS in today dollar). Consoles and games prices have hardly move in real dollars over the last few decades, I think there's more people gaming but each person yield much less money (inflation adjusted).
Not to mention the fact that there are a shitload of people who would never play a console or PC game, but will play games on their phone. People don't even shit without their phones with them and it's hard not to have at least one game of some sort on your phone. It's where those terrible feminist activist sites get their data that the majority (like 57%) of gamers are women....because they don't tell you that a lot of grandma's are playing Candy Crush or Alphabetty and shit now, let alone inform people that those numbers are mostly derived from games off cell phones.
Then you have to factor in something like the Switch, with is a console, but also mobile and as a result how are they counting it? Because in Japan it is almost strictly a mobile device, on top of the Switch Lite which is exclusively a mobile console. However the phrasing in this graphic leads me to believe they are strictly talking about phone games, because of the use of the word "mobile" versus handheld.
China is likely a big producer of the mobile revenue as well, simply because they are the masters of knocking shit off. Even knock off each other. Chinese games like League of Angels and those similar are rampant on the app store and i can't imagine how much worse it is on the Chinese store where they don't have to localize anything.
Well that was actually good news in comparison to what I could reasonably suspect.
There is nothing inherently wrong with either platform, it's just a matter of how the various titles on the platform is implemented that should be cause for concern. While my understanding is that mobile revenue is mostly an exercise in chasing for microtransactions there is nothing wrong with mobile as a platform. That being said, if we think of it as "microtransactions/casino mechanics is infecting gaming" and mobile's growth in the chart being an indication of this then things look bad. However that is something I've already come to expect as a permanent fixture of the industry so mobile taking more revenue is not something I focus on. What I am focusing on is that both consoles and PC apparently have a rising income level. That says to me that all the platforms will remain viable, which means that no matter what platform you're on you can be sure to find something to play. That is a good thing.
There is nothing inherently wrong with either platform, it's just a matter of how the various titles on the platform is implemented that should be cause for concern. While my understanding is that mobile revenue is mostly an exercise in chasing for microtransactions there is nothing wrong with mobile as a platform. That being said, if we think of it as "microtransactions/casino mechanics is infecting gaming" and mobile's growth in the chart being an indication of this then things look bad. However that is something I've already come to expect as a permanent fixture of the industry so mobile taking more revenue is not something I focus on. What I am focusing on is that both consoles and PC apparently have a rising income level. That says to me that all the platforms will remain viable, which means that no matter what platform you're on you can be sure to find something to play. That is a good thing.
Was gonna say, the only shrinks on there are Arcades (although in that niche, I've seen a bit of an uptick in Cyber cafes/whathave you using Cloud/streaming gaming), and Handhelds (which much like standalone mp3 players, are getting gradually assimilated onto the omnipresent smart phone that almost everyone has).
Consoles expand and contract basicaly based on generational launches. The 2020 end actually shows a slight boom.
PC has been one that has expanded noticeably (other then the obvious mobile). The chart itself mentions Twitch before the expansion starts, but I'd attach it to streaming in general. Most streamers use PC as platform simply for technical ease if nothing else, thereby promoting it And also tend to spotlight some of the more obscure games that come out only on PC (while the cosnoles have upped their indie game, they're still usually the second stop in most cases, and rarely promote them significantly).
There's also a missing component, as to the source and how they're actually calculating these numbers, of course.
PC and Consoles will survive fine. Big deal. I don't do mobile gaming, because nothing there interests me.
I'm surprised that Arcade is even significant enough to warrant a mention at this point.
Anyway, mobile gaming being bigger than console and PC gaming combined isn't news to me, even if it isn't pleasant. I try not to be a purist about things (in part because I've seen PC gamers do the whole master race thing unironically), but it just doesn't interest me. What sucks, as the chart displays, is that with handeld gaming almost dead, there seems to be nothing to act as a middle ground between mobile and PC/console. Indie? Yeah, maybe. But it's handleld's that bugs me the most in that graph.
1: Games require electricity from the grid, which is the easiest source of CO2 to decarbonize. So even if there's an increased demand for power, it's not necessarily going to mean increased CO2.
2: Even if cloud gaming does have increased power demand, it does represent dematerialization of sorts. Like, for example, I can download/stream a movie, or purchase the DVD. Streaming/downloading requires more energy to run the film. However, there's also the embedded energy in the DVD itself to consider. I can't say which is more friendly to the environment, but there isn't an automatic scenario of downloading/streaming being worse.
3: There was a study not too long ago that the power costs of streaming like Netflix have been grossly overestimated. Now, that isn't the final word on the issue, but isn't as clear cut as the article might imply by itself.
Anyway, mobile gaming being bigger than console and PC gaming combined isn't news to me, even if it isn't pleasant. I try not to be a purist about things (in part because I've seen PC gamers do the whole master race thing unironically), but it just doesn't interest me. What sucks, as the chart displays, is that with handeld gaming almost dead, there seems to be nothing to act as a middle ground between mobile and PC/console. Indie? Yeah, maybe. But it's handleld's that bugs me the most in that graph.
The idea of mobiles is that you play the games in short bursts. So while there's no issue in porting games for it (including RPGs), that's not really what they're meant for. I mean, if you have time to sit down and play something, would a mobile be your first choice?
Sometime after the Age of Dark.
I rarely say this on environmental issues, but cloud gaming isn't something I'm too concerned about. As in:Another thing I wondered about is the parameters it’s using for cloud gaming, since technically couldn’t any platform with online capabilities also have cloud functionality or services? Or is it strictly dedicated cloud devices or providers? Probably that.
Another thing to consider if that ever takes off -
1: Games require electricity from the grid, which is the easiest source of CO2 to decarbonize. So even if there's an increased demand for power, it's not necessarily going to mean increased CO2.
2: Even if cloud gaming does have increased power demand, it does represent dematerialization of sorts. Like, for example, I can download/stream a movie, or purchase the DVD. Streaming/downloading requires more energy to run the film. However, there's also the embedded energy in the DVD itself to consider. I can't say which is more friendly to the environment, but there isn't an automatic scenario of downloading/streaming being worse.
3: There was a study not too long ago that the power costs of streaming like Netflix have been grossly overestimated. Now, that isn't the final word on the issue, but isn't as clear cut as the article might imply by itself.
It doesn't HAVE to be that way. You could also...not. You could just make a proper Jrpg like in the handhelds of the past 25 years, one you could sink hundreds of hours in 8 hours per session. FGO is like that, especially during the storymode segments, with multiple 20+ minute long cutscenes between fights.
I'm all for porting RPGs to mobile, but you wouldn't design a game for mobile from the ground up to be played 8 hours at a time.
This actually kind of goes both ways, as there's a number of mobile games I wouldn't mind playing on console or PC - Fire Emblem Heroes, Diablo Immortal, etc. But nope, these are mobile-exclusive because...reasons. And I really don't get why.