The combination of continued lockdowns and current-gen console fever resulted in some pretty impressive numbers for the industry in 2021. According to a new report from Ampere Analysis, consumer spending on games, console hardware, and game subscription services hit a record high last year with a total spend of $60 billion worldwide. The company’s head of games research, Piers Harding-Rolls, also noted that the spend could have been even higher had it not been so difficult to get a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X.
“The increase in spending was driven by higher-priced new consoles available on the market and increased adoption of subscription services, such as Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass,” Harding-Rolls said in the report. The games research head indicated that this was “a great result considering the backdrop of heavy spending fuelled by stay-at-home orders during the previous year.”
Interestingly, total spending on games, battle passes, expansion packs, and in-game items dropped from 2020 to 2021, but only by a minimal 1%. 2021 was also the first time that physical game sales dropped below 30%, with many players now preferring digital titles. This also coincides with the release of the digital-only Xbox Series and PlayStation 5 consoles.
Game services grew 20% due in large part to the popularity of Xbox Game Pass. Ampere notes that PlayStation Plus and Nintendo Switch Online only had a minimal impact on this sector.
Investments, IPOs, mergers, and acquisitions in the video game sector set records for transaction volume in 2021. According to DDM Games Investment Review, the huge wave of new deals were largely driven by new investors hoping to capitalize on the new blockchain game craze. Total game-related investments jumped from 406 deals worth $13.2 billion in 2020 to 765 deals totaling $38.5 billion in 2021. Over half of all transactions in the final quarter of last year were related to blockchain gaming.
Current estimates claim that global spend records are on track to reach $61.1 billion by the end of 2022.
