Research firm Midia recently launched its Global Games Forecast Report for 2025-2031. This report predicts specific trends in the gaming industry. And the report predicts that a day of high growth for the gaming industry may be behind it. Specifically, double-digit growth is likely to continue, and publishers predict that “survive until 25 years” will not be sufficient if they do not want to face disappointment at their lack of profit.
The report forecasts $203.2 billion in software revenue in 2025 and $237 billion in software revenue in 2031. This will allow the game to line up along the International Monetary Fund’s forecast inflation rate of 4%, which will essentially increase annual growth. Additionally, following a sharp decline in 2024, the launch of the Switch 2 predicts hardware revenues will increase by 8.4% to $20.6 billion in 2025. And while the global number of gamers is rising, the average revenue per paying user is declining as emerging markets grows.
The key point of the report is a counter to a clearer forecast of a return to pandemic-era growth across the industry. I honestly say that the era of double-digit growth is “end.” We acknowledge that games will get juice from the launch of the GTA VI and Switch 2, but please note that this is not necessarily a good thing for anyone other than the company that creates these products.
In a statement, Midia game analyst Rhys Elliott said: “Undoubtedly: GTA and The Switch 2 – Other premium releases will help increase market revenue (6.4% year-on-year growth for consoles in 2025). But Nintendo and Take-Two are big here Become a winner. GTA 6 will attract all the attention that negatively affects other developers’ games.”
Live service games and other dead ends
The Midia report also states that growth vectors such as live service games and subscription services are not the money maker that many believe, and are already reflected in the former case. Multiple live service games have been shut down or are not interested in users and are now returned to the company, so they will soon be shut down. Game subscriptions such as PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass can also slow down growth significantly as user attention is very divided. The report states, “The live service’s Gold Rush already had a winner.”
“Many executives have been led to believe by several consulting firms and major game analytics companies, and double-digit growth continues,” Elliot said in a follow-up interview with GamesBeat. [after the pandemic]illuminates dangerous projects and strategies in green. Many of the resulting movements did not pan out in the end. And some have been cancelled after years of development – and a week after it was released in the case of Concord. The gaming market has reached its maturity stage and has been like this for a while. ”
In short, there’s not enough gamer attention to deal with all of these projects. This means that game publishers must find other ways to keep themselves. Switch 2, which can potentially support all kinds of games from mobile to PC (if rumors about new mouse-like features are true), could offer publishers a way to extend the lifespan of their back catalogues. there is. Developers can also target underserved markets.
And if gamers have one advantage, then the gaming industry is likely to quit their obsession with live service titles and return to creating single-player premium titles that gamers actually buy and play. Games like Black Myth Wukong and Baldur’s Gate 3. To quote Elliot: “My recommendation: reduce waste, follow trends, increase innovation, increase data auxiliary segmentation. Market continues catering to the same gamers and hopes that pie will grow You can’t do that.”
