The personal computer (PC) gaming industry continues to show an uptick despite reported global sales dip in PC sales, according to Min-Liang Tan, co-founder and creative director at video gaming company Razer.
A report published by Superdata backs this up, stating that with the proliferation of mobile and social media penetration, consumers are making a shift away from dedicated gaming devices and towards non-dedicated devices like smartphones, tablets and PCs with the latter being the primary platform and dominating the market with 51%, console at 30% and mobile at 13%.
"There were predictions that the platform would cease to exist as a viable gaming platform. However, recent statistics show growth in the PC gaming industry as a whole, the market brought in $20 billion in 2012, a full 8% gain over the previous year, and we expect to see similar growth when the numbers are in for 2013," explains Tan.
Similarly, according to the report, handhelds and mobile devices have traded places. The introduction of competitive tablets and smartphones like the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy has helped to more than double the number of gamers who use mobile devices as their primary platform, an observation that Tan concurs with.
"Gamers are able to play their favourite titles on the go like never before. PC gaming is not dead; rather, it is evolving, with gamers not only buying consoles, laptops, PCs and peripherals to play their favourite games, they're buying phones and tablets and smartwatches," he states.
Tang also notes that the African continent, which has been looked upon as an afterthought by many, presents huge opportunities due to the quick growth.
"Africa's economy grew by 5.6% last year, the highest growth continental growth rate in the world, and one that is predicted to remain steady over the next 10 years. The World Bank expects that most African countries will reach 'middle income' status by 2025 if this growth continues.
He points out that the influx of more capital in the continental economy has led to a greater development in the regional infrastructure.
"The Internet, which has an obvious correlation to the growth of gaming, is available to more people in the region than ever before and it grew more than 1 000% over an eight-year stretch last decade," he says.
"As the infrastructure continues this rapid development, we anticipate demand for gaming products will increase as well, and the South African game market is one to keep an eye on; the games market in-country has caught up to the music and motion picture industries in terms of revenue. With that steady and fantastic growth, home-coded games should follow," adds Tan.
"It's an exciting time for the industry, and we can't wait to see what happens next, he concludes.
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