The story of a great battle in the video game industry

PC or console? A debate among gamers that never ends. Professional PC players officially dislike consoles and consider them an insult to games. On the other side, console players also regard PC play as an instance of not being professional in the gamer world. Among console fans, too, other far-reaching debates are under way, and each of them supports a particular console. For example, the rivalry and quarrel of the Xbox and PlayStation consoles, each of which belongs to the large companies Microsoft and Sony, is a long-standing rivalry, and especially with the release of a new generation of consoles this rivalry intensifies. But there is a much larger group that watches the quarrel of these two groups from a distance. This large group has no interest in being known as professional gamers, and they may not even know that they are gamers, and they may not even know at all who or what a gamer is. But with all this, they have a great debt owed to them by the video game industry. That's right. We are talking about mobile gamers.

A view of the status of mobile compared with gaming computers and consoles

Based on reports published by Newzoo, video games in 2023 had revenue of nearly 188 billion dollars. This figure shows annual growth of 2.6 percent relative to last year in the video game industry. Of this amount of revenue, 92.6 billion dollars was revenue related to mobile games, which includes 49 percent of this entire market.

Global revenue of the video game market in 2023

The statistics also show that 79 percent of the gamer community use their phones for play. Of course only 35 percent of the entire gamer community play solely on their phones, and the other 44 percent, alongside mobile, also use PC and console for playing. Even so, relative to consoles, which have 41 percent players, and compared with PC, which has 43 percent players, smartphones, with 79 percent, account for the largest number of players among the statistical population of gamers.

Reasons for the reception of mobile games

 

The most important reason for the reception of mobile games to this extent must be seen as the accessibility of mobile. Today almost all people use smartphones, and in the hands of old and young, women and men, a smartphone is found. For this reason, access to mobile games relative to access to console and PC games is much easier. Alongside these, mobile games are generally considered free, or with very low entry costs. The bulk of mobile-game revenue is either through advertising or through in-app payments. Other factors such as ease of download and use and simplicity of installation and running cause reception of mobile games among various strata of people to be high. Usually titles that are played on console and PC require spending a great deal of time and concentration, but the generality of mobile games is comprised of the Casual genre, which does not require a high level of skill and allows its audiences, in any place and at any time, without need for learning and training and skill and high concentration, to be able to play for a short time and, whenever they want, without any problem arising, return to the game again and play. Even so, one should not imagine that in the long run phones will be able to take the place of PC and consoles for gamers. Over recent years, even with the considerable progress of phone hardware, they have not become capable enough to be able to run console and computer games that require very powerful hardware, and still for professional gamers, going to PC and consoles is considered a more desirable option. The percentage growth of console and PC game revenue relative to mobile games, which appears to be a saturated market, confirms this. In 2023 console revenue had 7.4 percent growth, and this, compared with 0.8 percent growth in the mobile-game market, appears very considerable.

Asia-Pacific: the large mobile-game market

The Asia-Pacific region in recent years has been able to obtain a special share of the video game market for itself. In 2023 this region was able to take 86 billion dollars, that is, equivalent to 46 percent of the video game industry's total revenue, of which 44.3 billion of that related to China alone.

In the field of mobile games this statistic is more considerable. Reports indicate that in 2023, 64 percent of mobile-game revenue related to the Asia-Pacific region. China's presence in this region, of course, has been very influential in forming this statistic; China alone holds 31 percent of all revenues related to the mobile-game market.

Factors in the growth of the mobile-game industry in the Asia-Pacific region

In general and at the world level, one of the factors that has caused the growth of mobile games to take on new life is technological advances and improvement of the internet situation. The emergence and expansion of the new generation of 5G internet, alongside advances in mobile technology and hardware and their public access, allow all people to play more diverse and more up-to-date games. Playing games especially in the cloud is a possibility that has been provided with the expansion of 5G internet. In the Asia-Pacific region, generally because of lower per-capita income (compared with the United States and Europe), mobile games are generally considered a more accessible option. Smartphones are tools that everyone has, but spending on a console or obtaining a PC may require extra cost that perhaps not everyone is willing to pay. From another angle, producing mobile games, relative to producing computer or console games, requires less financial cost. Producing a mobile game does not require strange technology or a very crowded production team (something that producing an AAA title usually needs). For example, if the average production cost of a prominent title for console and PC is between 50 and 150 million dollars, this figure for a mobile game falls to 5 million dollars. This very subject has caused many Chinese, Indian, and Southeast Asian producers to go toward investing in and producing mobile games, and choosing this path, given the existing market in these countries and given the limitations that exist on the path of investment for them, is much more cost-effective and more suitable than investing and producing console and computer games. Based on a report by the All-Correct Games blog, the number of online mobile gamers in Southeast Asia last year increased to about 250 million people. Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines are the six important mobile-game markets of Southeast Asia. This region (Southeast Asia) has been able to become a special market both for video games and for mobile games. It may be interesting for you to know that nearly 82 percent of the urban population of these regions are gamers and 80 percent of this population play their games on mobile. Another important factor that has caused the mobile-game market in the Asia-Pacific region, and especially in regions such as China, Japan, and South Korea, to have considerable growth relates to the cultural background. Producing titles based on the taste of the Eastern audience, together with taking into account the history and culture and geography of that locale, has caused among East Asian gamers special attention to be given to these games, whose mobile versions are also generally available. For example, in China games such as Arena of Valor and Honor of Kings have been produced that have paid great attention to Chinese myths and legends. Games such as Genshin Impact and Black Desert Mobile, too, because they take Eastern taste into account, have many fans among East Asian gamers and for a long time were available exclusively for players in these regions and, with global release, found global fans.

Final word

Mobile games form the most profitable part of the entire video game industry, while the video game industry itself is one of the most money-making and most profitable industries of today's world and the most profitable among the creative industries. The emergence and expansion of the mobile platform as one of the video game platforms has given many countries, and especially the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, the possibility of obtaining a special share of the video game market. Perhaps many of these countries' producers have not had the opportunity to produce AAA-level games alongside large European-American companies; perhaps they did not have the required capital at the outset; but the enormous financial turnover associated with mobile games that is under way in this region proves this rule, that to participate in a particular market it is not necessarily necessary to produce the best and most complete and largest possible good. Taking into account the various spectrum of audiences, innovation and creativity alongside considering cultural-historical elements, are factors that Asia-Pacific producers took into account in producing mobile games for their own audiences and global audiences, and they have also gotten results. This story can be a good lesson for our domestic producers, that to participate in the video game market and turn this industry inside the country into a revenue-generating industry, it is not necessarily necessary to go toward producing high-cost, expensive works. The successful experience of Southeast Asian countries and the production of low-cost but creative mobile works that can find a wide market can be considered a successful model for us.

 

Mohammad Sharifi