Analyst firm Newzoo predicts in a new report that game revenues in the APAC region will rise 15.2 per cent this year to total circa US$38.9 billion.
Top earners in Asia will include China, forecast to top US$17.9 billion and ranked second worldwide after the US, Japan with US$12.2 billion (ranked second globally) and Korea at US$3.36 billion (ranked sixth). Australia will also hit revenues of US$1.14 billion, Taiwan US$643 million and India US$583 million.
“The market has become a truly global playground,” said Newzoo CEO Peter Warman. “The lion’s share of market growth can be found outside of mature markets.”
Among the top 10 highest-spending countries worldwide per capita, Japan will lead at US$120/person, followed by Korea at US$79/person. Australia will rank fifth per capita globally with US$55/person in game spending.
The report follows Newzoo’s prediction in May that the APAC games market will account for 82 per cent of global game revenue growth in 2014.
Worldwide game revenues, including PC, online PC, mobile and console games were also forecast to grow by 8 per cent (US$6 billion) in the earlier report, to top US$81.5 billion this year.
PC and online PC games will account for 40 per cent of the global market in 2014 as well, growing 9 per cent year-on-year. MMOGs alone will grow by 16 per cent to hit US$17.8 billion in revenues worldwide.
Console games will decline by 1 per cent with 29 per cent market share this year, and handheld console earnings will fall by 20 per cent.
Tablet revenues are also expected to rise by a 37 per cent, with overall mobile earnings growing by 19 percent to account for 27 per cent of the worldwide market in 2014, according to Newzoo.
