Exiting Russia Means Loss of a Market Worth Billions of USD for Game Publishers
Game developers and publishers (and more) are pulling their products out of Russia en masse, and in doing so are rejecting a market that generates billions of dollars in revenue.
A number of the video game industry representatives has left Russia - with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo at the forefront. However, even for such giants it could not have been an easy decision.
Russia is a gold mine for publishers
IDG Consulting Group estimates that in 2021 alone, video games generated revenue of about $3.4 billion in Russia. The lion's share of that total came from mobile games ($1.4 billion) and PC titles ($1.2 billion; via Gamesindustry.biz). However, while consoles were a minority, $864 million is still a lot.
- IDG compared Russia with the whole of Europe, which last year brought the gaming industry 51.5 billion dollars. According to Newzoo Russia is the sixth largest video game market in Europe, and ranks fifteenth in the world.
- Analysts also provided examples of specific games. For example, the immortal Grand Theft Auto V is the third most popular video game in Russia, and it probably brought Take-Two a lot of money from microtransactions.
Let's not forget that we are only talking about Russia here. Some companies have also cut themselves off from Belarus, which cooperates with the Russian Federation. Although it's a much smaller market, more than 100 million dollars (according to Newzoo's estimates) can hardly be called a "small" amount, even from the perspective of the biggest industry giants.
Of course, it's not like Russia is the video game industry's biggest boon. The $3.4 billion is still a small part of the global market, valued at over $180 billion in 2021. (via Statista). Of that total, nearly half is generated in the US.
Still, the suspension of sales by developers and publishers in a market worth literally billions of dollars can hardly be called a symbolic gesture. Especially since some of these companies are associated not only with video games (including giants such as Microsoft, Sony, Netflix, Nvidia etc.). The current actions set a precedent that the public can refer to in the future.
