Left to right: Kathee Chimowitz of BoomBit Games, Emily Greer of Kongregate, Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat, Peter Levin of Lionsgate, and Frank Soqui of Intel.
Left to right: Kathee Chimowitz of BoomBit Games, Emily Greer of Kongregate, Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat, Peter Levin of Lionsgate, and Frank Soqui of Intel.
Categories

Gaming has gone mainstream, but it still has room to grow

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 26 min

The global games market is expected to grow from $137.9 billion in 2018 to more than $180.1 billion in 2021, according to market researcher Newzoo. The world has about 2 billion gamers now thanks to mobile gaming, which now accounts for half of all revenues.

Just how big is this party going to get? We contemplated that question in a panel about games going mainstream in a session at the Milken Global conference in Los Angeles last week, where 4,000 investors and other VIPs gathered. Games, of course, are already mainstream, with titles like Grand Theft Auto V selling 90 million units and generating $6 billion in revenue.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks. 

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Previous page Next page
Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.