“Ministers Information”: Expectations of video game revenues reaching the world

Cairo - AA:

The Cabinet Information and Decision Support Center stated that in 2020 there were 2.69 billion video players worldwide, with the global gaming market generating $159.3 billion in revenue, nearly half of which came from the Asia Pacific market, with growth driven by demand of 1.5 billion. player, and it is expected that the numbers in 2023 will reach 3.07 billion players, with revenues estimated at 189.3 billion dollars.

This came in a report issued by the Information Center on Electronic Games, which dealt with the stages of development of these games, the number of players worldwide, the revenues of electronic games, their risks, and the measures adopted by countries to confront the threat of addiction to these games.

The report explained that video games have become so popular on a large scale that some gamers are broadcasting videos of themselves playing them at home and earn hundreds and thousands of dollars by doing so, and this has become another revenue-generating segment in the video game market, and technology companies are also looking to It will have a share of that revenue, and tech giants like Google, Meta and Apple have made plans to enter the video game industry.

He pointed out that the Asia-Pacific region controls the largest proportion of revenue, and China is the leader in the global electronic games market in terms of the number of players and sales, so the number of players reached 665 million in 2020, and this number translated to $ 44 billion in sales for the year 2020. .

The United States comes in second place with more than 244 million players, with revenues of $ 37 billion in 2020.

He pointed out that China, although it started late in the field of games and was a small market in the beginning, has risen to the top of the gaming world, as well as despite the fact that the Chinese government has already imposed a 14-year ban on imports and sales of gaming devices amid fears of youth addiction to games, the market Chinese non-banned PC games flourished, PC gaming quickly gave way to microtransactions, then social networking games like Farmville which were very popular, and finally, mobile games in the context of League of Legends, and since 2015 , a year after the game console ban was lifted, China generated more gaming revenue than the United States, numbers hitting a record high in 2016 and then slowing in 2018, when another government action saw new game licenses frozen due to renewed fears of game addiction among Young.

And he indicated that Japan, South Korea and Germany are among the top five gaming markets, as the relatively mature Japanese game market continues to grow, reaching nearly $19 billion in revenue for 2020, and in the fourth and fifth places are South Korea and Germany, with a value of 6.56 $1 billion and nearly $6 billion, respectively.

The Information Center report dealt with the number of hours players spend in video games during the week, and confirmed that in 2020, players in the age group between (18-64) years around the world spent an average of 6.33 hours per week in video games, and about 26% spent between (1-5) hours in video games, 19% spent between (6-10) hours, and 7% spent more than 20 hours per week.

The report showed that for two consecutive years, Germany recorded the highest weekly average of playing time of nearly 7 hours per week, a decrease of 13% compared to 2019, South Korea recorded the lowest level with 5.04 hours, and the United Kingdom ranked second with an average of 6.89 hours in The United States comes in third place with an average of 6.76 hours per week.

He pointed out that video games or electronic games are just a means of entertainment and entertainment, but excessive gaming leads to addiction, and on May 25, 2019, the World Health Organization officially voted to adopt “gaming disorder” as a behavioral addiction, and according to the World Health Organization, the criteria do not include as much A certain number of hours are spent playing, but a person is considered to have “gaming disorder” when they are unable to stop playing, even though it interferes with other areas of their life, such as family relationships, school, work and sleep. These usually persist Problems for at least one year, and gaming addiction can lead to various problems, in terms of psychological effects, social issues, changes in lifestyle, and academic problems with spending most of the time playing games and not having time to study, increasing aggression or violence.

The report emphasized that many countries are trying to solve the problem of gaming addiction, in South Korea, the government passed a law that prohibits children under 16 years of age from accessing online games between midnight and six in the morning, and in Japan, players are alerted if they spend more than a certain amount of time each month playing games.

In the United States and Britain, the response to this problem was scant. Addiction is not used as an official term in the United States yet, but researchers and clinicians remain concerned about some of the behavior patterns they see. As China imposes the world’s most restrictive restrictions on video games, the authorities have adopted new rules in order to “effectively protect the physical and mental health of minors,” whereby children under the age of 18 are only allowed to play online games between 8 and 9 pm on Fridays. Saturday, Sunday and public holidays, these rules are the most restrictive in the world, affecting tens of millions of people; It is believed that about two-thirds of Chinese children play online games regularly, but the idea is not new, as China is concerned about video game addiction.

China's "anti-addiction system" requires players to use their real names and a government-issued identification number to play online and is removed from the game when their allotted time has expired. There are promises of stricter monitoring. One of China's largest video game companies is testing facial recognition software; To ensure professional players can't use other people's credentials, after the new rules were announced, rival Tencent and NetEase shares dipped a bit, and the consequences could be even more painful in the long run.

He noted that despite the World Health Organization declaring “gaming disorder” as a behavioral addiction in 2019, during the “Corona” pandemic, the World Health Organization supported video games on the Internet; The World Health Organization has partnered with major video game makers to support online games as a way to keep people indoors to help fight the coronavirus, and in mid-March 2020, Italy's largest telecoms company announced that internet traffic had increased by more than 70% in the days after the government imposed rules. Quarantine, and the main reason behind the rise is the increase in the practice of video games such as “Fortnite” and “Call of Duty”.

In the United States, Verizon Internet Services reported a 75% jump in gaming activity on its networks during the second week of March 2020, when stay-at-home directives began to be implemented. Individuals in the United States believe that video games are having a positive impact; 90% of gamers see video games as bringing fun, 79% believe that games can be a source of inspiration, 87% think they are mental stimulation, 87% think they help relieve stress and tension, and 81% think they help build The spirit of cooperation and teamwork.