The games industry is one of the success stories of the modern world. It is worth billions of dollars, with its global value expected to hit $435 billion before the end of the decade.
One of the reasons this industry is thriving in an uncertain economic landscape is that it is infinitely adaptable to shifts in technology. Already mobile gaming accounts for the largest share of its market, at $92.2 billion.
Most expect the next big tech advance to be virtual reality worlds like the metaverse, and the games industry is ready for that. Therefore it is likely to remain in rude health.
In this article we will be looking at how the performance of the gaming sector impacts the wider economy.
Which areas of the industry are having the biggest impact?
Although every segment of the games industry is booming right now, there are some parts that are particularly dominant. Bingo and casino are widely regarded as the two most popular and successful forms of gaming in the modern era, most notably in their online incarnations.
Bingo is a game that has a very long history, having been invented back in 16th century Italy. Of course, that was merely a prototype of the current game, but even that has been a feature of the entertainment landscape for around a hundred years.
The full bingo history is detailed in this Jackpotjoy piece, but in short, the game enjoyed huge popularity during the 1960s and 1970s before going into sharp decline. That drop-off in interest was reversed in spectacular fashion by the emergence of online bingo options in the 1990s.
Bingo now has a customer base of young people, predominantly women, who are enthusiasts for playing it on the internet. They are drawn to the colourful bingo sites that offer a huge choice of games as well as the promotional offers that add a new dimension to the game compared with the old days of bingo halls.
It is in the UK that bingo is especially big, and its economic impact is tremendous. The game adds more to the economy of the nation than streaming powerhouses Spotify and Netflix, at £1 billion per year compared with their combined UK turnovers of £750 million.
Surprisingly bingo halls make up the biggest chunk, at £635.9 million, but their share of the turnover is decreasing while that of online bingo is rising each year. This indicates that the latter represents the future of the game.
It also shows that the revival sparked by online bingo has boosted the bingo hall though, thereby helping high streets around the UK.
The economic impacts of casinos are perhaps harder to evaluate. Casinos never really declined in popularity the way that bingo did during the 1980s, but the online casino has broadened their appeal and helped to introduce younger generations to them.
Online casinos are able to offer the sort of lucrative bonuses and promotional offers that attract new players and that is a key part of their appeal. They can also now provide in-person gaming thanks to video streaming of games that feature live dealers.
Furthermore, as with online bingo, casino gaming on the internet has had an effect on the traditional bricks and mortar casino – and on the global economy. By this, we mean the phenomenon of casino tourism.
What is casino tourism?
Casino tourism means people journeying to different parts of the world to visit their casinos. It has existed for a long time, as the economies of resorts like Las Vegas and Macau are heavily dependent on their sizeable luxury casinos, but it has spread in recent years.
Countries such as Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in the Baltic regions have constructed casinos to exploit this market. Most of these have been built in large cities such as Vilnius, Tallinn and Riga, where there are other tourist attractions and the result has been an economic revival in formerly depressed areas.
The location of casinos is vital to such a result, as evidence has shown that the success of casino tourism is dependent on the gaming outlets being complemented by other types of entertainment and hospitality offers. Las Vegas has long understood that.
Gaming and the economy
What casino tourism shows when it works is that gaming can bring major boosts to local economies. People travel to play at a casino and they then visit other entertainment spots and look for places to eat and hotels to stay at.
This brings in money and creates jobs, which makes it something that countries around the world cannot afford to ignore. However, the economic impact of gaming is not just about tourism.
The online games industry contributes billions of dollars to the global economy each year, and the figures are rising steadily. It is now a bigger contributor than both the music industry and Hollywood put together.
The two economic strands are connected to one another because the rising popularity of online forms of gaming is helping to fuel the numbers attending real-world bingo halls and casinos.
With VR expected to be the next step forward for this industry, the question is whether that balance will remain in place. After all, it offers the potential to simulate the real-world gaming experience with total accuracy and immersion.
Gaming business is driving national economic revivals as well as supporting the global economy.
