A frantic growth from 2011 to 2022, then 3 difficult years

From 2011 to 2021, video games experienced a dazzling boom. Expenditure has increased twice as fast as in the previous 20 years, with annual income up 150 % (from $ 80 billion to $ 200 billion).
The growth of video games between 2011 and 2021 has not only exceeded its historical averages, it was also significantly higher than global growth (for example, 3.4 times the world’s real GDP rate).
Although some people anticipated a slowdown or even a decline after the COVID crisis, most expected that the growth of the games continues at a high pace, even what it accelerates.
Instead, expenses dropped ~ 3.5 % in 2022, then barely increased in 2023 and 2024, to end in stagnation over 3 years – and therefore dozens of billions of less revenues from forecasts .
This decline occurred despite the end of the shortages of consoles and processors in mid-2022, and in 2023, undoubtedly the best calendar for leaving content in the 70th anniversary of industry.
A post-pandemic decline is not enough to explain the contraction and blocking of the video game sector. Expenses devoted to books, music and video (especially digital) continued to increase.
Thus, not only does the video game industry do not reach global growth goals, but it contracts in real terms, with a drop of around 13 % since 2021.
Expenditure is not the only ones to decrease, players too. The average playing time has partially restored, but it is mainly because the least committed players have completely stopped playing.
The lack of players, money and time compared to forecasts (and even compared to 2021) led to an unprecedented number of disappointments or commercial failures.
The increase in failure rates has also led game manufacturers to cancel dozens of securities under production, having lost confidence in the commercial files they had approved only a few years ago
The financing of the content of the games has also collapsed, falling by 77 % compared to the summits affected between S2’21 and S1’22 and even returning to the levels of 2018-2019 (although consumer spending increased by 34 % , or $ 51 billion).
The collapse of venture capital investment is not only due to the decrease in the average size of investment tricks, but also to the decrease in the number of investment laps and the reduction in the number of Investors.
Many independent studios founded since 2019 closes today because they cannot find funding for venture capital or publisher necessary to finish their games.
Employees have been hardly affected, undergoing successive record layoffs. Releases can improve short -term margins, but they will not restore industry growth.
And what game creators need is growth. The actions of the game sector have underperformed the market from 19 to 140 % since 2020; Most of them have lost 10 to 80 % of their value.
And behind the layoffs that make the headlines, there are always significant hires. Most publishers will have more employees in 2025 than in 2022, even after deduction of acquisitions.
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Access the full report (in English) – Matthew L. Ball site