The 20s are proving to be a watershed decade for gaming of all types, regardless of what type of game we are looking at. 2021 turned out to be a blockbuster year for the industry, with revenues approaching $200 billion by the end of the year. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that well over half of this revenue, or $127 billion to be precise, was earned by just ten companies.
These companies saw their revenues increase by 10% year on year based on a report recently released by Newzoo. The clear winner of 2021 turned out to be Tencent, with the company bringing in around $32.2 billion all on its own. That’s twice as much as Sony, which earned around $18.2 billion in the same period. In spite of the fact that this is the case, Tencent’s growth is not keeping up with that of its rivals. Its 10% yearly growth is healthy, but it felt short of the growth seen by Apple and Google.
Apple’s revenues from gaming increased by 17.7%, Google did even better with 20.8%, and NetEase also had a good year with a 15% revenue bump. Microsoft’s 9.6% growth rate fell just short of Tencent’s, but the company’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which itself saw a 10.1% bump in revenues, might make it a major player in the coming year.
All in all it’s shaping up to be a competition between American Big Tech, including Apple, Google and Microsoft, to see who will supplant Tencent’s spot. However, Tencent earns far more revenue than any of these companies, so much so that its slightly lower rate of growth is to be expected given the market saturation that it might now have gotten to.
Still, Microsoft’s acquisition and Google and Apple’s surprising growth might at the very least result in Sony being bumped down a notch or two. Sony is the second highest earning gaming company but they saw revenues decrease by 2.3% making this a bad year for Japanese corporations.
Read next: In-App Purchases by American Users Increase by 13%, Cross $42 Billion
These companies saw their revenues increase by 10% year on year based on a report recently released by Newzoo. The clear winner of 2021 turned out to be Tencent, with the company bringing in around $32.2 billion all on its own. That’s twice as much as Sony, which earned around $18.2 billion in the same period. In spite of the fact that this is the case, Tencent’s growth is not keeping up with that of its rivals. Its 10% yearly growth is healthy, but it felt short of the growth seen by Apple and Google.
Apple’s revenues from gaming increased by 17.7%, Google did even better with 20.8%, and NetEase also had a good year with a 15% revenue bump. Microsoft’s 9.6% growth rate fell just short of Tencent’s, but the company’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which itself saw a 10.1% bump in revenues, might make it a major player in the coming year.
All in all it’s shaping up to be a competition between American Big Tech, including Apple, Google and Microsoft, to see who will supplant Tencent’s spot. However, Tencent earns far more revenue than any of these companies, so much so that its slightly lower rate of growth is to be expected given the market saturation that it might now have gotten to.
Still, Microsoft’s acquisition and Google and Apple’s surprising growth might at the very least result in Sony being bumped down a notch or two. Sony is the second highest earning gaming company but they saw revenues decrease by 2.3% making this a bad year for Japanese corporations.
Read next: In-App Purchases by American Users Increase by 13%, Cross $42 Billion
