In an report released today, accounting firm PwC predicts a 3.6 percent growth in revenue for the United Strates games industry, and a 4.8 percent growth for the global games business.
In an interview with VentureBeat, PwC strategist Chris Vollmer attributed the bulk of the growth to the games’ industry’s ability to segment the market into subsets of businesses that can rise or fall on their own strengths, and how multiple market segments have seen a projected increase in digital purchases such as DLC and add-on content.
“The growth in online microtransactions is really robust,” as Vollmer tells Venturebeat. “A big part of the story going forward is how game companies figure out revenue per user with some of the bigger franchises.”
Despite the praise for microtransactions, PwC offers a somewhat tempered projection for the growth of mobile games revenue, saying it would be “a boom-and-bust business.”
The firm included the data in its “mobile and social gaming” category, and notes that larger growth in mobile revenue will likely happen in China and Nigeria, as mobile becomes a larger portion of the market. It’s a more cautious estimate then reports such as those from Newzoo, which have been been bullish on the rise of mobile gaming in places like China.
The PwC report contains some conservative projections for virtual reality and eSports, since neither industry has grown large enough yet to be able to predict revenue growth.
PwC has listed more data on their site, with comparisons to the games market against other entertainment businesses.
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