2y ago

50 Years of Video Game Industry Revenues, by Platform

Article by the Visual Capitalist, based on data by UK market research firm Pelham Smithers

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/video-game-industry-revenues-by-platform/

It kinda sucks that my favorite format, handheld is so low compared with the other hardware (yeah, I'm not considering mobile as handheld lol).

13 comments

I really want to see this graph adjusted to remove micro-transactions
- My guess is it would look pretty similar, just without the “Mobile” block.
- That’s only in the better timeline
I like think I’m responsible for that little blip in the early 2000s, around the time I got my first job. Strictly so I could buy whatever games I wanted without begging my parents.
Where do machines like the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST fit in? Would they make up part of the PC segment?
Is the switch not handheld? Is the stream deck not hand held? I get they don't have to be, but that's what their primary use case is. It's pretty obvious we're going to have a lot of screen with controllers on the side form factor in the next decade. I don't think this should get lumped into either console of PC.
- Well, they have not "handled games" for sure, unless you consider emulation.
  I don't think streaming from local or internet with a phone and an attached controller counts as handheld gaming for me.
- How could you split out steam deck revenue from PC revenue? If I buy a $30 game on steam, is that $30 for PC or for the steam deck/handheld? Or does it get split between the two based on how hours I play on PC vs steam deck (and how would that work if I never actually play the game)?
  Personally I don't think it's worth having a handheld category at all. If I bought a Gameboy game for $30 but I actually played it on a super Gameboy instead of a Gameboy then it's not technically handheld either. Just call the Gameboy a console and the steam deck a PC.
There were paid mobile games in 1995? Only game I knew of was snake, and that was free 🤔 The webpage doesn't shed any light on that.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- I suppose you could argue that pre-installed games still counts as part of the market. Not sure how you'd could the value though. Like a small part of the phone cost?
  Otherwise the earliest store/system seems to be i-mode in 1999.
Where do I find a good list of free mobile games?
Suppose a good list of paid mobile games also?
- Well, I know there are some good android gaming and iOS gaming communities on Reddit and perhaps here too, I know opinions are biased, but at least you should get human recommendations and interactions (for the most part I think) so I'd try searching there.
Arcades staying alive at $2Billion

13 comments