It has been estimated that APAC would be home to 1.5 billion gamers in 2020, accounting for 55% of the global gaming population, and worth over $78 billion in revenue. Suffice to say, these projections will now be easily surpassed given the pandemic’s significant impact on gaming behavior, usage and spending, as experienced and new gamers alike immersed themselves in virtual worlds while the real world has been off-limits.
Esports, especially mobile esports, has continued to be a growth driver for gaming in APAC. In China, esports has become such a mainstream industry that it has been added into some postgraduate and vocational programs. It also became a medal sport at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, further proving its cultural relevance.
Another development in gaming has been the expansion of the gaming audience to include more women and more players over 45 so that the profile of the gaming audience is looking more like the general population. Some APAC game developers have started to create new games aimed at female gamers and hope to expand the esports audience by cultivating professional female esports players and launching esports tournaments for mobile titles that are popular among women.
