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The Almighty Buck Software Entertainment Games Hardware Technology

Worldwide Gaming Market Hits $91 Billion In 2016, Says Report (venturebeat.com) 76

According to a new SuperData Research report, the worldwide gaming market was worth a whopping $91 billion this year, with mobile gaming leading the way with a total estimated market value of $41 billion. The PC gaming market did very well too, as it pulled in nearly $36 billion over the year. PC Gamer reports: The mobile game segment was the largest at $41 billion (up 18 percent), followed by $26 billion for retail games and $19 billion for free-to-play online games. New categories such as virtual reality, esports, and gaming video content were small in size, but they are growing fast and holding promise for 2017, SuperData said. Mobile gaming was driven by blockbuster hits like Pokemon Go and Clash Royale. The mobile games market has started to mature and now more closely resembles traditional games publishing, requiring ever higher production values and marketing spend. Monster Strike was the No. 1 mobile game, with $1.3 billion in revenue. VR grew to $2.7 billion in 2016. Gaming video reached $4.4 billion, up 34 percent. Consumers increasingly download games directly to their consoles, spending $6.6 billion on digital downloads in 2016. PC gaming continues to do well, earning $34 billion (up 6.7 percent) and driven largely by free-to-play online titles and downloadable games. Incumbents like League of Legends together with newcomers like Overwatch are driving the growth in PC games. PC gamers also saw a big improvement with the release of a new generation of graphics cards, offering a 40 percent increase in graphics power and a 20 percent reduction of power consumption.
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Worldwide Gaming Market Hits $91 Billion In 2016, Says Report

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  • VIDEO GAMES (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Quakeulf ( 2650167 ) on Thursday December 22, 2016 @05:15AM (#53536033)
    At the same time AAA-games are becoming more like movies with less interaction and more passive watching of cutscenes, and this will continue until there is no distinguishing element between film and game left.
    • by guises ( 2423402 )
      Er... what? There are some AAA like that, I suppose. The ones which get most of the publicity and money tend to be multiplayer focused though. If you want to insult Call of Duty I'm not going to stand in your way, but "passive" just isn't accurate.

      I guess if you only play the single player campaign then maybe it's possible (I haven't played a Call of Duty in a long time), but that's really not what the game is about at this point.
      • If I wanted to insult CoD I'd not go for the cutscenes but rather for people being stupid enough to buy the same game over and over and over.

        • If I wanted to insult CoD I'd not go for the cutscenes but rather for people being stupid enough to buy the same game over and over and over.

          A lot of people say they would pay for an improved version of the same thing, but CoD players (or similar... Madden was always the poster child after all) are putting their money where their mouth is. They're funding the ongoing development, incremental improvements, generation of new assets, and so on. For their $50ish dollars they are getting many, many hours of entertainment, however same-y it might be.

          Personally, I am a cheap bastard, so I tend to play games with even lower up front costs. They are ofte

    • Well, yes and no, and actually, the studios start cutting back on the cutscenes by now, because they noticed that they piss off the players more than they enhance the story. Don't get me wrong, watching a cool, action packed short scene can be great, but playing a game over from the start and having to sit through 10 minutes of unskipable intro footage is about as popular as an unskipable DVD intro.

      Studios have noticed that by now, especially now that reviewers and bloggers have come to put a focus on such

      • Studios have also cut down on pre-rendered cutscenes because they're obscenely expensive to produce, and these day, with graphical fidelity what it is, you might as well your in-game assets for in-game cutscenes where needed. It's far less jarring.

        But more than that, when your character in a cinematic does something really cool, you tend to think "why couldn't I have done that?" I think it's a very welcome trend to see cinematics that advance story or enhance emotional connections, but NOT using them at b

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's possible to do both.

      Back in the late 90s Japanese shoot-em-ups realized that it was great fun for players to have a relatively easy game with a spectacular amount of stuff on screen and mega-powerful weapons to cut through waves of enemies, but they also included some extra mechanics in the scoring for players who wanted a real challenge.

      Western developers could learn from that... Many seem to be stuck with tired old ideas like putting in vast amounts of crap to collect, or offering the real challenge

      • Western developers could learn from that... Many seem to be stuck with tired old ideas like putting in vast amounts of crap to collect, or offering the real challenge via DLC, or just making the bad guys bulletproof on higher difficulty levels.

        Achievements have killed that dead in AAA games. If it's actually difficult to get them all (as opposed to merely tedious) then people will cry about it.

      • Bulletsponges and rubberbanding are killing a lot of singleplayer games. I really hate it when I have to shoot someone fifteen times in their head with a shotgun to kill them while they only have to see my toe to have me down to 50% health. Then when I race around and push another car off the track seeing it crash and turn around in the mirror, the next round it's right behind me like nothing happened, or even worse, when I crash into it to send it off the track, it's like a tank and I get sent flying. Too
    • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      At the same time AAA-games are becoming more like movies with less interaction and more passive watching of cutscenes, and this will continue until there is no distinguishing element between film and game left.

      I agree with you. I think if they took something like the Assassin's Creed movie and cut it down and added some gameplay they'd end up with a pretty good video game.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      At the same time AAA-games are becoming more like movies with less interaction and more passive watching of cutscenes, and this will continue until there is no distinguishing element between film and game left.

      Which is why I'm glad to be a part of the PC Gaming Master Race.

      The best thing the Filthy Console Peasants have to look forward to is pressing X to watch COD.

      OK to be fair some AAA games are actually good, such as Fallout 4 and as soon as 2K fix it, Mafia III. However I've given up on that consolised crap like Battlefield.

    • I guess you haven't played Dark Souls 3, Fallout 4, Forza Horizon 3, Overwatch, Doom, Hitman, XCom 2, etc. A game that tried to go in this direction, The Order 1886, was heavily criticized for doing so. Not sure if it's as bleak as you make it out to be.

    • by rhazz ( 2853871 )
      That's not really a problem, since there are many other non-AAA titles filling the void, especially on PC. I used to look to Square (SquareEnix) for RPGs... but since FF-X they keep pushing titles that are FF-flavoured but have lost the appeal of the earlier series. There are many alternatives though, just don't expect to see commercials on TV for them.
    • There's almost no reality associated with this statement. Yes, there are cutscenes sometimes, but the most popular games have almost none. Particularly an online game that's competitive, from MMO's to first person team-based games to real-time strategies, there are no cutscenes at all.
  • Minority hobby? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MCROnline ( 1027312 ) on Thursday December 22, 2016 @06:21AM (#53536163)
    Can we please all try to bury the myth once and for all that gaming is niche or a childs hobby. Jokes about people in basements aside, isn't it time gaming was recognised as a legitimate hobby?
    • What's a "legitimate hobby"?

    • Re:Minority hobby? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Thursday December 22, 2016 @07:24AM (#53536335) Homepage

      It is a legitimate hobby. But then again, you had people who believed that gearheads of the 40's and 50's and working on cars was the path to gangs, violence and all that. The same people who say gaming isn't a hobby, are the same types ~30 years ago that would have been spouting that D&D creates satanists(because D&D isn't a hobby). And DOOM makes kids into serial killers. And are likely right there saying that gaming is sexist/racist/misogynist today.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        For most people gaming isn't a hobby, any more than watching movies or reading books is a hobby. A hobby is something you do to achieve some goal (usually self-improvement), as opposed to something you do just for entertainment. Of course there are people who do play video games as a hobby, but mostly it's just entertainment.

        As for the sexist/misogynist criticism, I know you haven't actually seen Tropes vs. Women but those videos are very careful only to make that claim where it is really justified. Most of

        • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          For most people gaming isn't a hobby, any more than watching movies or reading books is a hobby. A hobby is something you do to achieve some goal (usually self-improvement), as opposed to something you do just for entertainment. Of course there are people who do play video games as a hobby, but mostly it's just entertainment.

          Thanks for proving that you don't know what a hobby is. I'll wait with baited breath as you trot out that gamers are dead.

          As for the sexist/misogynist criticism, I know you haven't actually seen Tropes vs. Women but those videos are very careful only to make that claim where it is really justified.

          You mean like the "there's no sexy men" and "I can't look at batman's ass" because she too stupid to figure out that not only can you change his suit. But while wearing the cape it's a "stiff piece of equipment used for flight." Hey, I can stare at Geralt's tight ass all I want though. Or would you like me to start into the parts where she cites articles that don't exist, or have f

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Or would you like me to start into the....

            Yes. Please lay out your criticisms, complete with citations, quotations and links to the material in dispute. I can't debunk your vague accusations without them.

            As for Batman's cape, have you actually seen it in motion? It's clearly not "stiff", it's standard cloth physics. Also note that just because you can change the costume or find contrary examples, that doesn't actually contradict what is being said. The fact remains that many male characters do get strategic butt coverings, where it is exceptionally

  • Is it considered "download", "PC", "retail", ...? How would the researchers even know, considering that Valve is not (to the best of my knowledge) publishing data on its sales?

    • by aliquis ( 678370 )

      Likely download though not necessarily free to play, I don't know where they count all the "gambling" aspect of ValveÂs own products though (the skins and hats.)

  • and STILL haven't seen a good release day for PC games in 2016 for $60 titles...Dishonored 2, Batman...I'm looking at YOU.

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