Global Gaming Industry

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Market Size in 2021: USD 193 billion
CAGR: 15.6%
Market Size in 2025: USD 211 billion

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The global gaming industry hit $193B in 2021, growing at a 15.6% CAGR. In 2025, it's expected to touch $211B, with mobile gaming alone contributing $116B. Gamers aren’t just players anymore, they’re creators, streamers, and now, earners. ¹

New Revenue Models

Gaming has shifted from one-time purchases to recurring microtransactions, downloadable content, and long product lifecycles. Platforms like Twitch and eSports tournaments now let gamers monetize their time and skill.

Power of Communities

User-generated content (UGC) is at the core of platforms like Roblox and Fortnite. Gamers now co-create and get paid. It’s a win-win for devs and users. Virtual concerts, trivia, and immersive events are keeping players hooked.

Enter Web3 Gaming

Web2 games limit players: no ownership, no value return. Web3 games use blockchain to allow ownership of in-game assets (NFTs), interoperability between games, and decentralized economies.

NFTs: Digital Assets

NFTs represent ownership of virtual goods like land, art, and collectibles. From $15.7B in 2021, the NFT market is expected to hit $122B+ by 2028.⁴ SEA nations lead adoption, with prices up 80% in early 2022. ³

NFT Market Breakdown

– Collectibles: highest volume ($6B+)
– Gaming: largest community (~900K wallets)
– Art: elite & niche
– Metaverse: small but hyped
– Utilities: domain names, social tokens
NFTs also offer portfolio diversification during market turbulence.

Play-to-Earn (P2E)

P2E lets gamers earn by playing. Axie Infinity showed what’s possible — 40% of users earned $1,000/month in 2021. ⁵ India leads in adoption (34%), followed by HK, UAE, and the Philippines. ⁶

Private Placements in the Blockchain Gaming Industry⁷

What Lies Ahead

Web3 gaming is scalable, decentralized, and creator-friendly. With VCs pouring money into blockchain gaming, the future is already being built. Play-to-earn, NFTs, and digital economies are just the beginning.

Porter’s Five Forces for the Global Gaming Industry

Threat of New Entrants – High

The barrier for entry is low especially in the early phase since it is very easy to announce a project, develop a website, white paper and get funding from doing an ICO. While the possibility of new competitors is high, for them to pose a threat with a real team backing a project and competitive product is low.

Threat of Substitutes – Low

The traditional games, eSports, and freemium games can substitute for the entertainment factor, but none of the substitutes allow the users/gamers to monetize and earn by just playing. Compared to traditional games, the community in NFT games are involved in key decision making through staking and voting mechanisms.

Bargaining power of customers – Medium

It is a matter of supply and demand regarding the hopes and promises made by the project. Key factors to consider would be direct communication from the founder and employees to the current community for request and implementation of different features in a game.

Bargaining power of suppliers – Low

Most of the services being bought can be easily found in competitors for a resembling price. There are two non-conventional suppliers (Unity & Unreal Engine) that provide software solutions for the creation of the platform. Both these companies have high bargaining power due to large market share.

Existing Competitive Rivalry – High

There are major direct competitors such as Axie Infinity with 1.5 million active users, the Guild of Gaming with 100k+ users on waitlist and The Sandbox which has reported 300,000 active monthly users.