The games industry’s growth potential is shrinking | MIDiA

Research firm MIDiA recently launched its Global Games Forecast report for 2025 through 2031, in which it predicts certain trends in the gaming industry. And in this report, the forecast foresees that the games industry’s day of high growth might well be behind it. Specifically, it predicts that double-digit growth is not likely to continue and that publishers should temper their expectations if they don’t wish to face disappointment in their lack of gains — and that “Survive until ’25” is not enough.

The report predicts software revenues of $203.2 billion in 2025 and $237.0 billion in 2031 — which will bring gaming in line with the International Monetary Fund’s predicted inflation rate of 4% and essentially render growth flat for the year. It also predicts the launch of the Switch 2 will bring hardware revenue up 8.4% to $20.6 billion in 2025, following 2024’s sharp decline; and that while the global number of gamers will grow, the average revenue per paying user will go down thanks to growing numbers in emerging markets.