• Global video game market revenue by category 2025

In 2021, social and casual gaming outpaced traditional gaming in terms of revenue. The mobile-heavy segment saw approximately 91.97 billion U.S. dollars in annual global revenues, while traditional gaming generated 62.3 billion U.S. dollars in annual sales. Digital revenue is dominating the gaming segment, as physical gaming sales are declining for a variety of reasons.

Revenue of the video gaming market worldwide from 2016 to 2026, by category (in million U.S. dollars)

Characteristic	Traditional gaming	Social/casual (mobile) gaming	Advertising	eSports
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Release date

July 2021

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2016 to 2020

Supplementary notes

* Forecast

Traditional gaming comprises revenues associated with playing games on PCs and games consoles (both TV-connected and portable). This includes physical (disc-based) game sales at retail (both bricks-and-mortar and online retailers), digital game sales (including Steam, Good Old Games and Origin for PCs, and the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store and Nintendo eShop for consoles), and additional downloadable content (DLC) and subscription services. Online/microtransaction revenue also includes spending associated with free-to-play Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs), but does not include spending on social and casual browser-based games, which are included in the social/casual gaming component.

Social/casual gaming revenues includes consumer spending on and in app based games on tablets and smartphones, and browser games aimed at a casual audience (e.g. Ruzzle and Zynga’s Words with Friends). This includes revenues associated with the purchase of social and casual game apps, subscription services for social and casual games, and the purchase of virtual items within social and casual games. This also includes revenues associated with “hardcore” mobile games (e.g. Infinity Blade 2).

Video games advertising revenue includes only static advertising in video games. It does not include dynamic advertising inserted into or displayed alongside the game in an app or browser during play.

eSports comprises consumer and advertiser spending on esports, defined as organised video games competitions, both online and offline, from one-off events to organised leagues.