Video gaming has gone from a niche hobby enjoyed by a few distinct demographics of people to a mainstream form of entertainment that’s on its way to rival movies and television as one of the most popular ways to relax and unwind at home. 

It’s logical that we’re seeing this trend. The gaming industry has embraced changes in technology and popular culture to deliver a more engaging and exciting offering to its customers.  

Throughout the 1990s, we saw video games go from blocky graphical monstrosities to content that could be objectively described as beautiful. In the 2000s, we saw the rise of online multiplayer functionality, and during the 2010s, we sure casual games and free-to-play titles take off. 

Thanks to the efforts by gaming companies to grow their industry and to the ever-increasing interest in video games by players, the worldwide market for such content reached $249 billion in 2022. This year it is forecast that gamers will spend around $281 billion this year, representing a 12.9% increase in just 12 months.  

More Than Twice as Big By 2030

That growth isn’t expected to slow down either. According to Grand View Research, the video game industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.9% between 2022 and 2030.  

This will result in the global video game market more than doubling in size within seven years, starting the fourth decade of the 21st century with over $665 billion being spent on video games and related content and hardware. 

But how will this be achieved? Let’s examine how the industry will evolve to support this enviable growth.  

iGaming Expansion

Following the creation of the iGaming industry in 1994, when the Antigua and Barbudan government passed legislation that permitted remote wagering businesses to operate from its shores, the companies that offer players the ability to bet on popular card games have grown and expanded over and over again. 

They’ve done this in various different ways, with fierce competition in the space driving a lot of investment in innovation. For example, many iGaming companies quickly embraced the concept of mobile gaming, releasing apps for Android and iOS shortly after the smartphone market exploded in the late 2000s. In more recent years, some brands have also begun creating virtual reality offerings so that their players can enjoy a more immersive wagering experience. 

It’s not just technology, though. Online card rooms have also helped to grow their user bases by creating educational content that helps new and seasoned players learn about the game and improve their playing. For example, PokerStars has a set of guides that cover topics like poker rules, strategy, and the values of each hand. Most of these are aimed at players that are looking to learn the ropes before they take a seat at one of their virtual tables. 

This approach has helped the iGaming industry to grow to be worth $197 billion and will, according to GlobalData, allow it to expand even further to be worth $470 billion by the end of the decade. 

Gaming as a Service

Much of the growth in video game revenues in the coming years will come from activities other than the sale of large blockbuster titles. That’s not to say that these AAA games won’t still be a major contribution to the industry’s income; it’s just that publishers will continue converting their business models to operate more like software-as-a-service companies.

We already see a lot of this in the form of microtransactions and subscriptions. These allow players to purchase in-game content and buy tickets to take part in a new ‘season’ of a title, like in the case of Fortnite. Both approaches help to extend the lifespan of a video game several-fold while also decreasing costs for developers since it is much cheaper to create new maps, weapons, and skins for existing games than it is to develop an entirely new title from scratch. 

In 2023, we’re in the middle of this transition. Some publishers still charge eyewatering sums for their games while also rinsing their players with in-game purchases once they actually get stuck into it.

By 2030, there’s a good chance we’ll have moved away from this double-dipping approach, with many publishers switching entirely to the free-to-play model where players are encouraged to make smaller but more regular payments. 

In 2022, these microtransactions were valued at almost $68 billion, accounting for 27% of the total income of the gaming industry. This year, they’ll reach nearly $77 billion, keeping pace with the overall market. If companies decide to push their in-game purchases further, it is feasible that these small but frequent transactions could account for more than half of all gaming spending by 2030.