Spending on gaming software across all platforms will reach $88 billion this year, according to research from Digi-Capital. They forecast that number to grow 8 percent annually and will surpass $110 billion by 2018. And mobile will drive that growth more than any other sector.
Spending on smartphones and tablets will already generate more revenue than console games this year. Although, that doesn’t include sales from hardware like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 systems. And it also doesn’t include PC games on Steam or free-to-play megahits like League of Legends.
“Where mobile games will take $3 of every $10 spent by gamers on software in 2015, that figure will go up to $4 out of every $10 by 2018,” Digi-Capital founder and managing director Tim Merel wrote in the report.
“Mobile games revenue will grow from $29 billion in 2015 to $45 billion by 2018 at 15 percent annual growth. Asia has dominated mobile games revenue since 2013, compared to both North America and Europe, and Digi-Capital forecasts Asia to take over 50 percent of all mobile games revenue in 2018.”
“This is great for games leaders and their shareholders,” wrote Merel. “But it puts the big squeeze on midtier players and makes breaking through more challenging for indies.”