Games are key to PayPal's life after eBay

PayPal is ditching eBay. The online-auction company is spinning off its payment subsidiary, and game-related transactions are one of the big areas where the payment processor may look to grow.

More than 153 million people have active digital wallets with PayPal, and the company processed $200 billion in payments in the last 12 months. But despite those huge numbers, PayPal faces intense competition from companies like Apple and Google. To ensure its future as it goes independent, PayPal could make immediate gains and ensure its future by focusing on gamers, according to intelligence-firm SuperData Research. The total gaming market reached around $93 billion last year, which is a lot of payments that PayPal could take part in.