In 2020, the revenues of console and PC games in China had increased by over ** percent compared to the previous year. One of the main driving forces came from the intense competition between the two largest gaming companies - Tencent and Netease. Game titles such as Three Kingdoms and Overwatch sold over *********** copies in the Chinese market in 2019.

In 2020, global PC video game sales amounted to ***** billion U.S. dollars. This ** percent growth compared to the previous year is largely due to COVID-19-related stay at home orders, which contributed to an overall industry increase. In 2021, PC video game revenues are projected to surpass **** billion U.S. dollars.

In 2020, total PC video gaming software revenues amounted to almost **** billion U.S. dollars and are projected to increase to ***** billion U.S. dollars in global consumer spending by 2025. Premium Gaming-as-a-Service titles (GaaS), also known as live service games, were the biggest revenue driver with approximately ***** billion U.S. dollars in 2020.

In 2020, the total revenue of console and PC games in China had reached approximately *** million yuan, up ** percent cpmpared to the previous year. The surge was partly driven by the technological advancements of the Chinese game publishers. Another reason for the growth would be from the intense competition between the two largest gaming companies - Tencent and Netease.

Between December 2021 and April 2023, the game industry in the United Kingdom contributed an annual total of **** billion British pounds to the UK's GDP, the highest recorded figure since 2011. This represents a significant growth from the *** billion British pounds worth of annual contribution during the previously measured period.

The share prices of four companies producing some of the world's best video games from January 2000 to February 2024.

Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in July 2008 through the merger of Activision, Inc. (the publicly traded parent company of Activision Publishing) and Vivendi Games. It is traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol ATVI, and since 2015 has been a member of the S&P 500 Index. Activision Blizzard currently includes five business units: Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, King, Major League Gaming, and Activision Blizzard Studios. https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F10074224%2F44131e11275e32094a02f2c2c7ed437c%2Factivision-office.png?generation=1682852644217105&alt=media" alt=""> The company owns and operates additional subsidiary studios, as part of Activision Publishing, including Treyarch, Infinity Ward, High Moon Studios, and Toys for Bob. Among major intellectual properties produced by Activision Blizzard are Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk's, Spyro, Skylanders, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, and Candy Crush Saga. Under Blizzard Entertainment, it invested in esports initiatives around several of its games, most notably Overwatch and Call of Duty. Activision Blizzard's titles have broken a number of release records. As of March 2018, it was the largest game company in the Americas and Europe in terms of revenue and market capitalization. Nintendo Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes and releases both video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Karuta by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. After venturing into various lines of business during the 1960s and acquiring a legal status as a public company, Nintendo distributed its first console, the Color TV-Game, in 1977. It gained international recognition with the release of Donkey Kong in 1981 and the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros. in 1985. https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F10074224%2F78fc67916f57f5b2f336fa3144d14c48%2Fnintendo.900x.jpg?generation=1682852735183488&alt=media" alt=""> Since then, Nintendo has produced some of the most successful consoles in the video game industry, such as the Game Boy, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo DS, the Wii, and the Switch. It has created numerous major franchises, including Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Kirby, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Star Fox, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Super Smash Bros. Nintendo's mascot, Mario, is internationally recognized. The company has sold more than 5.4 billion video games and over 800 million hardware units globally as of 2022. Ubisoft Ubisoft Entertainment SA is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, For Honor, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Rabbids, Rayman, Tom Clancy's, and Watch Dogs. https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F10074224%2F0c41ffee9463b847774c9b6bacaf3123%2Fistockphoto-584479884-170667a.jpg?generation=1682852814452144&alt=media" alt=""> Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die!. The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991. https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F10074224%2F67f54151bb4c494165cd2e1ff72900df%2F1200px-EA_Building_RedwoodShores.jpg?generation=1682852940548941&alt=media" alt=""> Currently, EA develops and publishes games of established franchises, including Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Army of Two, Apex Legends, and Star Wars, as well as the EA Sports titles FIFA, Madden NFL, NBA Live, NHL, PGA and UFC. Their desktop titles appear on self-developed Origin, an online gaming digital distribution platform for PCs and a direct competitor to Valve's Steam and Epic Games' Store. EA also ...

China, the world’s second-largest economy, is already home to one of the largest gaming populations in the world, a number reaching *** million in the first half of 2025. However, the growth rate of gamers in China has been stagnant over the recent few years. Online gaming in China China has become one of the world’s largest and most rapidly growing online gaming markets. Forecasts indicate that the annual average revenue per user (ARPU) in video games would pass the ** U.S. dollar mark by 2028. As of October 2024, over ** percent of Chinese internet users had engaged in online gaming. With an internet user base of *** billion in China, online gaming still possesses a massive market potential that is yet to be unlocked. Mobile gaming on the rise Mobile games have overtaken PC-online games as the largest sector in the Chinese online gaming market. Driven mainly by smartphone and other handheld device sales, the Chinese mobile game market has grown exponentially. In 2024, the mobile gaming market in China reach *** billion yuan with a year-over-year growth rate of **** percent. Tencent, one of the leading Chinese internet players, has been dominating the online gaming market in China. Other major online game companies in China include NetEase, miHoYo, and ** Interactive Entertainment.

The Sony PlayStation 5 was the best-selling video game console worldwide in 2025, selling over *****million units across the globe, having successfully overtaken the Nintendo Switch console in annual unit sales in 2024. The modern-day console wars While the term “console wars” was originally coined to describe the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo in the video game market during the 1980s and 1990s, the modern usage refers to the battle for supremacy between the PlayStation and Xbox brands. The most recent battle between these console giants has been fought out between their eight-generation consoles, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. However, while PlayStation 4 sales in Europe reached more than ** million units alone, Microsoft’s global Xbox One Sales are yet to reach ** million units worldwide. This duel has also turned into a three-way battle thanks to the enormous success of Nintendo’s hybrid video game console, the Nintendo Switch. Despite being released over three years later than its rivals, Switch global sales have already reached over ****million units worldwide, with over a third of the regional console sales occurring in North America. The future of console gaming This fight for supremacy shows no signs of slowing down with the next battle of the console wars upon the horizon. Following years of speculation, both Sony and Microsoft released their next-generation consoles in the lead up to the 2020 holiday season as PlayStation 5 and Xbox S respectively. Sony continues to have the upper hand, as sales of its PlayStation 5 hit over ** million units as of 2022. In comparison, estimates have Microsoft’s Xbox X/S Series sales at around ***million units as of July 2024.

In the fiscal year 2025 (spanning from April 2024 to March 2025), video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) generated 3.08 billion U.S. dollars of revenue in North America. The majority of company revenue was attributed to international markets.

As of 2019, the games industry workforce in the United Kingdom was dominated by men. Localization jobs, which employed the largest share of female workers, also employed the highest share of international workers. The programming sector employed 69 percent of UK games industry workers, and had the lowest share female employees, at ten percent.

Video games industry in the UK

The value of the games industry market has seen an increase over the last eight years, from nearly 3.4 billion British pounds in 2011 to over 5.3 billion British pounds in 2019. While the market value of boxed software decreased over this period, the mobile gaming market value experienced a continuous growth, reaching 1.2 million British pounds in 2019. One year prior, the games industry contributed 1.8 billion British pounds to GDP, up from just over one billion British pounds in 2008.

 Gaming consoles sales in the UK

The PS4 was the most popular gaming console in the UK in 2018, with nearly 5.5 million units sold. In comparison, the Xbox One sold roughly 4.4 million units that same year. From 2010 to 2019, console hardware revenue fell significantly, dropping to 448 million British pounds in 2019, down from 800 million British pounds in 2010. However, the figure peaked at 915 million British pounds in 2014.

In 2024 around 36 percent of Sony's revenue was generated through the game and network service segment. Sony sales by segment - additional information Sony announced total revenue of 86.45 billion U.S. dollars in their 2023 financial year, the highest the figure has been since 2008. The Game and Network service is Sony's most profitable operation, recording revenues of around 28.5 billion U.S. dollars in the same financial year. Particularly, Sony is famous for their PlayStation series of home and handheld video game consoles and its accompanying services. Over the years, Sony's sales of such devices increased, with sales of PlayStation 5 reaching 56 million units in FY 2023 Sony is active also in the TV and digital camera markets, although the company's presence in such industries dropped. Indeed, LG and TCL led the LCD TV market in 2023, holding shares of almost 20 and 12 percent, respectively, leaving Sony behind. Similarly, sales of the company’s digital cameras have decreased steadily.

How many apps are there in the Play Store? The number of available apps in the Google Play Store was most recently placed at 1.68 million apps, after surpassing 1 million apps in July 2013. Google Play Store Google Play was originally launched in October 2008 under the name Android Market. As Google’s official app store, it offers its customers a wide range of applications and digital media including music, magazines, books, film, and TV. As of April 2021, the ranking of the top-grossing Android apps worldwide is dominated by mobile games with Coin Master, Garena Free Fire, and PUBG mobile leading the ranking. This hardly comes as a surprise as it is estimated that gaming apps will account for over 70 percent of Google Play app revenues in 2024. As most apps in the Google Play Store are available for free, the company needs to utilize effective business models to secure healthy revenue. How do apps make money? Despite the robust gaming app revenues, most gaming apps are free to download and rely on monetization via in-app advertising or in-game purchases of items such as boosters and accessories. A November 2021 survey of mobile app publishers found that video ads were the most popular mobile app monetization model, followed by display ads and in-app purchases. Additionally, monetizing via subscriptions has proven an effective model for several highly popular apps, with subscription revenues hitting 18.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenues in 2021.