or a long time, the video game industry has been looked down on with contempt, but it must be acknowledged that since its beginnings in the 1980s, it has now become a mass cultural phenomenon. So much so that more and more of us in the editorial staff think that eSport is a fully-fledged investment sector, subject to its own rules.
Ninja Tyler Blevins E-Sport Celebrity - Video Game IndustryDo you know Tyler Blevins?
No? What if I tell you, Ninja? Still not?
Yet he is one of the most famous athletes on the planet. It is followed by nearly 9 million people and when it broadcasts its "fights" on the Internet, it is not uncommon for more than 100,000 people to follow it live. It even reached an audience of 667,000 spectators during a live broadcast last April...
Admittedly, he does not earn as much as a Messi (€126 million in 2018) or a Ronaldo (€94 million), but he would still earn nearly €500k per month...
And all this without leaving his chair and without letting go of his mouse! Because Tyler Blevins is a celebrity of eSport, an industry that has been growing for several years and which now weighs more than Tennis.
Video games: new records set every month
The figures for the video game industry are reaching new heights every day. You couldn't have missed the Fortnite madness at the beginning of the year. The game made headlines in many newspapers.
It must be said that he broke all records. Its publisher, the Epic Games studio (a subsidiary of Tencent of China), earned more than $300 million each month thanks to purchases in the game by the 125 million registered players... An unprecedented record: 68.8% of players have already bought something in the game shop, when most massively multiplayer games (MMOs) playing this kind of monetization do not exceed a rate of 10 to 20%. Even more surprising, the average basket of players who bought would amount to more than $80...
The comet Fortnite brings to light a market that is growing each year. The latest studies indicate that the 2.3 billion players will spend $138 billion in 2018 on video games. Some projections take the sector to $180 billion in 2021, representing 30% growth.
Add to that the booming eSport market ($700 million in 2017, a projection of $1.4 billion in 2020) and you will have an idea of the importance of the sector.
Numbers that make you dizzy, let's face it.
Another strong trend is the exchange of virtual objects, whose market is estimated at $50 billion... An absolutely staggering figure since it still adds a big third to this market! [My colleague Florian has also found the blockchain value that will allow you to take advantage of two of the megatrends of the coming years: eSport and blockchain.
How do the actions of the video game vary?
If you were to invest in video game stocks, how would you know when to buy and sell? How to anticipate prices to better speculate? A huge question...
Of course, the video game industry, like other economic sectors, is living up to quarterly results, but another important factor is driving prices: the release of video games.
Like all cultural sectors, we are in a prototype industry, which means that production is abundant and only a few games will become hits. Player reviews are therefore essential and especially for the releases of major studios whose flagship games are eagerly awaited by players.
In March 2011, the THQ share, an American developer, lost 20% following the release of its game Homefront which had disappointed. Similarly, the Ubisoft share (FR0000054470-UBI) had lost 26% due to the postponement of the release of two games, which nevertheless became hits.
Development studios are caught in the middle: they have to get out of the games quickly to bring in cash, which pushes them to reduce development times, but these games have to be properly finalized so that there are no bugs.
If you ever get caught up in gamer forums, you'll discover that games are often released almost in the beta version and that it's the patches that will fix the bugs after the game is released. Nothing like it to piss off your gaming community...