Newzoo CEO Peter Warman spoke at the White Nights business conference in Amsterdam. He shared his vision of the market and some figures.
Peter Varman
Here are the main theses of his speech.
More opportunities — more industry
The success of the gaming industry depends on the tools that gamers have. The more of them, the more revenue, the audience and the number of hours spent in games. Linking PC games to online, the spread of mobile, the creation of a freeplay model – these and other successful trends accounted for the most significant market jumps.
So, according to the Newzoo infographic, the level of player engagement doubles every five years. Other metrics are also growing. Newzoo predicts that by 2022:
- the audience will be 3 billion players;
- annual user spending on games will exceed $195 billion;
- the average weekly time in the game will reach 5 hours.
Chinese Game Dev aims for the West
Foreign markets have become a haven for Chinese companies. We are at App2Top.ru we have written about this more than once, and today this truth is already being voiced on White Nights.
According to Varman, the reason is the tightening of regulation in China. Over the past two years, the regulator has repeatedly changed the rules of censorship and publication of games in China. Because of this, even giants like Tencent and NetEase decided to expand their business outside of China.
PUBG rises on presets
The success of PUBG has been talked about for years. But Varman unexpectedly revealed one of the important distribution channels of the game in Southeast Asia. According to him, the publisher Tencent has agreed with the gadget manufacturer Oppo on the presets of the battle royale. The company’s smartphones are among the top 3 most popular models in the region.
Recall that Tencent recently updated the game development strategy. Very soon, PUBG Mobile’s total revenue reached $1.5 billion. 88% of the total amount the game earned in the outgoing year. China is its key market, accounting for 40% of revenue.
Game genres have finally mixed up
The traditional genre system is outdated, Varman believes. Today, hardcore mechanics and midcore elements can be found in casual games. At the same time, the creators of hardcore titles draw inspiration from games for casual audiences. Therefore, it makes no sense for developers or players to divide games into established genres.
And one more thing. In the past, Newzoo divided gamers into categories for the first time (read more here). At White Nights, Varman showed what activities and functions different categories of gamers are interested in. However, Newzoo collected this data only from the Chinese market.
It follows from the scheme that the so-called “time killers” (people who spend time playing games) prefer casual titles. These are easier to launch and almost immediately master. At the same time, “ordinary” and “hardcore” gamers are interested in games with exploration of the world and a greater emphasis on social functions.
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