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The largest and the fastest growing gaming market in the world is reported to be the Asia-Pacific region. The trend includes digital and social gaming as well as casino gaming. The shift toward digital games is something that is happening throughout the world, but it is the Asia-Pacific region that is leading the way in mobile gaming revenues, outpacing all other regions last year. The industry recorded growth that reached over $1 billion in revenues. Analysis by Frost & Sullivan also reveals the region to be the fastest growing for mobile games due to increased users of broadband, ownerships of smart devices, and social media. In addition to standing out in the mobile gaming market, five countries in the Asia-Pacific region are on the list of top ten countries in the world of online gamer penetration of Internet users (online gaming on computers).
Mobile Gaming Surpasses PC
The Asian gaming scene is often discussed relative to that of Japan, China, and Korea. However, the Southeast Asian gaming market is showing a quite lucrative potential, including Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. According to survey information from players and interviews with gaming company executives and others, it is these markets that will be showing industry growth. Through the year 2018 Indonesia is expected to show the most revenue growth, but the online player base is expected to see the largest boost in Vietnam. Furthermore, the Philippines is one of the only countries in the Asian market that has online casino gaming, which makes it a burgeoning online gaming market as well.
Overall, the games market in Southeast Asia is sometimes compared to China’s gaming market, with the Southeast trailing behind China a few years. Gamers in China have been gaming longer and often continue to embrace the MMORPGs, which are typically generating higher revenue. Gamers in China as well as in Southeast Asia are also embracing mobile games as well as the massively online battle arena games and shooters. The surveys show that Southeast Asian gamers tend not to prefer the MMORPGs of the older Chinese gamers. This trend is leading to game developers increasing their levels of spending on the types of games popular with Southeast Asian gamers.
Online Casino Gaming
As mentioned earlier, online casino gaming is available in the Asia Pacific market, mostly in the Philippines. As a whole the market share for this type of online gaming in Asia is relatively small, but this seems to be due in part to a different focus related to casino gaming. In Asia, the focus has been and seems to continue to be on building up brick and mortar casino gaming as destination resorts like those in Macau.
On the other hand, the online casino gambling market in the UK is booming. In fact, the UK is the largest online gambling market in the world. This may be due in part to citizens being able to play games online at PokerStars, who currently dominates the online poker market and recently furthered their offerings to include online casino offering popular games such as the famous number 21 blackjack. .
Though online casino gaming in the US is not booming as quickly as it is in the UK or Asia, it is leading the world in the rollout of LTE across the country. This has resulted in more broadband activity than anywhere else in the world. Other countries, including those in Asia, are now playing catch up, trying to roll out LT as rapidly as possible. The fact is user behavior changes when regions become saturated with 4G. When true 4G wireless broadband is available, the consumption of the internet doubles. This is a consistent result in all regions that have 4G connectivity. People in the US find themselves watching an extra hour of video every day. The reason it is so easy to do this is due to the accessibility of 4G mobile devices. People watch more videos, play more online games, and interact on social media while waiting for the bus, while standing in line, and even while waiting to use the restroom. No matter where people go in the US where there are relatively significant populations there is 4G access and entertainment at the fingertips. In the other countries that roll out 4G it will also be access to inexpensive smartphones that will how major growth in mobile and online gaming. Expansion of broadband and the accessibility of cheap smartphones is part of the reason the Asian online gaming market is growing so quickly; it is an emerging market with literally billions of people who will be accessing the internet for the first time.
Local Developers Follow Gaming Trends
The significant growth due to increased mobile opportunities has game developers and publishers expanding their market reach throughout Asia. In addition to a focus on mobile gaming there is a significant trend in the revenue growth for console games in India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. These are truly emerging markets that are expected to have a compound annual growth rate from nine to fourteen percent in Indonesia and India respectively. All of this anticipated growth in Southeast Asia has resulted in an increase in the game localization for the region. More and more people are recognizing the staggering growth rates and thus fueling the localization business.
Touchten, a game producer in Indonesia, is one example having a key market filled with a large, young population. This game producer logged two and a half million unique users with their mobile game called Infinite Sky. Another company that is expanding their online services is Vinagames, an online game platform run by Vietnam’s VNG Corp. Then there is Thailand with the largest game revenue in the region. The country’s local mobile game developer, GameMaker, has expanded its offerings in at least six Southeast Asian countries. It is clear the Southeast Asia region is an exciting gaming market to keep an eye on. The economies are growing as are the number of people with disposable income. While the Asia-Pacific region may rank just below that of North America and Europe in terms of the overall global market size, the compound annual growth rate for the region is one of the highest in the world. By 2017 it is anticipated the Southeast Asian gaming market will reach $1.2 billion with over one hundred and thirty million gamers in the region.
Other Interesting Gaming Stats
As of the end of 2014 the video game industry world-wide, including mobile gaming exceeded $76 billion US with projections to exceed $86 billion US by 2016. 91% of all people on the planet have a mobile phone. 56% of people own a smart phone and 50% of mobile phone users actually use their phones as their primary source for Internet access. While people may be talking on the phone more than ever before, that is not their primary usage on mobile devices; rather, they spend 80% of their usage inside applications and mobile games. 84% of people who own tablets spend most of their usage time playing games and 43% of tablet users spend more time on the device than they do using their televisions or personal computers.
There is no doubt the entire world is going mobile and as long as economies are strong and broadband continues to expand, so too will the current social gaming trends.
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