Data.ai and IDC: consumer spending on video games will hit $222B globally in 2022, with mobile gaming accounting for more than 61% of the total
Brendan Sinclair / GamesIndustry.biz :
Context & Ripple Effects
This forecast caps a five-year run of mobile-first predictions from the same analyst pairing: App Annie projected app-store spending past $110B for 2018 back in its 2017 forecast, the pandemic then pushed weekly mobile game spend to $1.7B by Q1 2021 (up 40% from pre-pandemic levels), and SuperData logged a record $10B digital month in March 2020 with mobile at $5.7B. Data.ai and IDC now put the whole games market at $222B for 2022, with mobile above 61%.
The significance is that this marks the peak of mobile's dominance claim: a year later the same firms forecast $108B on mobile games in 2023, just 55% of global spending, with consoles at $43B and PC/Mac at $40B closing the gap.
First-order effects
- Mobile stores and their platform holders capture roughly three of every five consumer game dollars in 2022, leaving console and PC publishers competing for under $90B of the $222B pool.
Second-order effects
- Publishers and investors reading the 61% share steer portfolios toward mobile-first development, but the follow-on Data.ai/IDC numbers show console and PC regaining relative ground as pandemic-era mobile engagement cools.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, mobile becomes a mature, replacement-driven market rather than a growth engine: Appfigures' 2024 data shows mobile gamer spend up just 4% YoY with less than $4B going to games released that year, and studio launches down 43% — consolidation around established titles rather than new entrants.
The trend: Mobile gaming's share of global game spending peaked during the pandemic and is normalizing toward a mature market where growth accrues to incumbent titles instead of new releases.