Newzoo, a market research institute, recently released its 2025 Global Game Market Report, which covers the latest projections up to 2028 and reveals profound changes in the global game industry landscape.
Global market revenues in 2025 amounted to $1888.8 billion: mainframe speed-up, and the mobile end continued to dominate
Total global game market revenue will reach $1888.8 billion in 2025, an increase of 3.4 per cent over the same period. Although the growth rate has slowed in comparison with the epidemic period, the industry has shown strong resilience and resilience. Specifically:
(a) Mobile end: $103 billion (+2.9 per cent), which still accounts for the largest share of 55 per cent, but East Asian markets have limited saturation growth and the willingness to pay continues to rise in the West;
Host: $45.9 billion (+5.5 per cent), driven by Switch 2 distributions, software price increases and strong product arrays, became the fastest-growing platform this year;
The PC end: $39.9 billion (+2.5 per cent), the growth of the market in China offset the decline in Western old real-time service game revenues.
The combined 45 per cent of PC and mainframe ($85.8 billion) highlights the continued viability of the buyout platform.The industry is moving from a quantitative to a value-driven strategy: the mainframe and PC revenues are increasingly dependent on 3As and pricing strategies, and while the mobile end is the same as the head, D2C (Face-Face Consumers) shows significant growth.
Regional markets are fragmented: the Asia-Pacific region is dominated by $87.6 billion (46 per cent) but is slowing; Latin America (+6.4 per cent) and Africa in the Middle East (+7.5 per cent) are growing at a higher but smaller rate. China and the United States showed remarkable performance, with China ($49.8 billion) and the United States ($49.6 billion) alone contributing half of the world ‘ s game consumption in 2025.
The global number of players reached 3.58 billion: penetration rates premonition market maturity
By 2025, the number of global game players will have reached 3.58 billion, an increase of 4.4 per cent over the same period, representing more than 60 per cent of the global total of Internet users. At first glance, it appears to be an explosive growth, but the percentage of Internet users by game players is stabilizing, and a smooth rate of penetration portends the characteristics of market maturity:
Mobile-end players account for an absolute majority (83 per cent) of 3 billion;
The PC has 936 million players (26 per cent), driven mainly by the growth of the Asian market in Steam;
Host player 645 million (18 per cent), the market is relatively stable and mature, and many younger generations use equipment to support their continued development.
The number of 1.9 billion players in the Asia-Pacific region remains absolute ahead, accounting for 53 per cent of the total market, while Africa in the Middle East is the fastest growing region (+6.8 per cent), reflecting the power of mobile priority markets to reshape global patterns.The industry growth narrative is moving from “player increment” to “deep participation”The α generation (10 years later) is in a strong position to play games across multiple platforms and grow in mobile priority ecosystems such as Roblox. As the baby boom generation (post-World War II economic recovery) fades, user retention, multi-equipment strategies and long tailings will be at the core of the new phase.
Outlook for the future: The market reached $206.5 billion in 2028, leading the growth of the host PC
Looking ahead to 2028, the global game market will reach $206.5 billion, with a complex annual growth rate of 3.0 per cent between 2025 and 2028, bringing the total number of players to nearly 4 billion. Of which:
The mainframe will be the subject of future growth, with a combined annual growth rate of +4.7 per cent in 2025-2028, especially in view of the launch of the century of ” The Ranger 6 ” in 2026 and the expected new generation of hosts to be listed in 2027, which will lead to an outbreak in the host market;
At the end of the PC, steady growth will be achieved, with a +3.3 per cent annual compound growth rate of 2025-2028, based on market penetration and high quality promotion in Asia and the Pacific;
Mobile markets will continue to expand and are expected to grow at a compound annual rate of +2.2 per cent in 2025-2028, but with overall economic growth and higher expenditures outside Google and Apple Shops, they will be less explosive than before.
Over the next few years, the mainframe and the PC will narrow the gap with the mobile end, and the focus of industry competition will shift from market size to user lifetime value mining — early testing times, post-sales support, and UGC (user-generated content) ecology, such as Roblox, is no longer a tactical choice but a central strategy.
