The local video gaming industry moved past the R1.7 billion mark after growing 30% year-on-year and is set to continue its trajectory.
Globally, the sector, worth $65 billion, is twice the size of recorded music. Video games are set to be the fastest growing form of mass media over the next few years, says online retailer kalahari.com.
Ramone Pickover, category manager for games at kalahari.com, says gaming as a whole is growing at about the same rate as online business.
Among the drivers are mobile games and consumers playing on multi-player platforms, says Pickover. Women are increasingly gaming, which has opened up another target market, he adds.
Pickover says the last festive season was one of the biggest in gaming in about five years. He says, while sales typically slow at this time of the year, they should pick up towards August and again towards the holiday period.
“The local industry has grown compared to the US, which declined by 8% in 2011. The US gaming industry accounts for more than 60% of the total gaming industry worldwide,” notes Pickover. Locally, the growth of the industry has been synonymous with more gamers entering the scene, with the market split between casual and hardcore gamers.
Estimated at 3.5 million, casual gamers have been the biggest part of the market for the past two years. Casual gamers play easily-accessible games with a short lifespan, mainly online or via social media, as well as on mobile platforms. Wii, DS, 3DS, PC, PSP and PlayStation 2 are also considered popular gaming devices for casual gamers.
Pickover expects innovative concepts to come out of E3 - the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo to be held between 5 June and 7 June. He says there has been a lot of “hush-hush” talk and online speculation about new consoles.
Some of the more historic launches that have happened at previous E3 events include Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox.
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