Video game revenue in 2018 reached a new peak of $43.8 billion, up 18 percent from a year earlier, and surpassing the projected total global box office for the film industry, according to new data released by the Entertainment Software Association and The NPD Group.
According to another data by comScore, preliminary indicators for global box office revenues published at the end of last year indicated that revenue from ticket sales at box offices around the world would hit $41.7 billion.
The $43.8 billion tally also surpasses numbers for streaming services, which are estimated to rake in somewhere around $28.8 billion in the last year.
Video games and related content have become the new source of entertainment for a generation — and it is something that has new media moguls like Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings concerned. In the company’s most recent shareholder letter, Netflix said that popular video game Fortnite was more of a threat to its business than TimeWarner’s HBO.
“The impressive economic growth of the industry announced today parallels the growth of the industry in mainstream American culture,” said acting ESA president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis. “Across the nation, we count people of all backgrounds and stages of life among our most passionate video game players and fans. Interactive entertainment stands today as the most influential form of entertainment in America.”
Gains came from across the spectrum of the gaming industry. Console and personal computing, mobile gaming, all saw significant growth, according to Mat Piscatella, a video games industry analyst for The NPD Group.