🎮 Games and Esports
Estimates state that the global games market will generate revenues north of $180 billion in 2021 from close to 3 billion gamers worldwide. That is a market rich with niches and opportunities.
For this issue's product ideas impulses, we look at the 2021 Trends to Watch in Games, Esports & Mobile report and the Global Esports & Live Streaming Market Report from Newzoo. From each, let us pick one area that caught our eyes.
The first one is Gaming-as-a-Platform, i.e. to use games and game engines for non-gaming content like fashion shows and concerts. Not necessarily for big brands and big artists. But think of the creator economy and everything you can create yourself or provide the tools for other creators to utilize gaming environments. And of course even "standard" gaming content is worth pursuing. Here are some platform examples, not counting in game engines like Unity, Unreal, or UPBGE:
The second area is esports, i.e. "competitive gaming at a professional level and in an organized format (a tournament or league) with a specific goal." The numbers are impressive:
- "Global esports revenues will grow to $1,084 million in 2021, a year-on-year
growth of +14.5%, up from $947.1 million in 2020."
- "The global games live-streaming audience will hit 728.8 million in 2021, growing
+10.0% from 2020. It will grow to 920.3 million by 2024, a CAGR of +9.2%."
And here's a thing: these numbers only "reflect the professional competitive gaming scene and exclude viewership or revenues generated through amateur competitive gaming." This highlights the downmarket opportunity for indie makers, side project builders, and bootstrappers. Find solutions for a certain niche in the esports ecosystem, i.e. for broadcasting platforms, game publishers, sponsors/ advertisers, organizers, consumers, teams, players, and influencers.
Newzoo's trends report highlights more trends of interest to us:
- Diversification: In addition to gaming itself, focus on creating lifestyle brands or content creation
- Traditional sports and esports: established clubs expand to esports. For example, more than 10 soccer clubs from the German 1. and 2. Bundesliga have active esports teams.
- League-based formats: the move from international tournaments to regional formats
Again, apply these trends to small and local teams to find problems to solve and your future customers. As I wrote back in issue #16 about soccer: imagine the number of shares and likes you get on information about your 12 y/o daughter's last game in her local league.
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