Asia-Pacific gaming market to be largest in world by 2027

The Asia-Pacific region will be the largest gaming market by 2027, led by China, Japan, Korea and India, Sami Kizilbash, Google’s global head of accelerators, said.

Four Korean independent game developers participated in Google's annual ″Indie Games Accelerator″ program [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The Asia-Pacific region will be the largest gaming market by 2027, led by China, Japan, Korea and India, Sami Kizilbash, Google’s global head of accelerators, said.

“Of roughly 3 billion gamers around the world, more than half are based in Asia,” Kizilbash said, adding that the gamers in the region also have the highest weekly average play time of 17.4 hours.

His remarks came during a live-streamed press event on Tuesday, as Google held a graduation ceremony for its annual “Indie Games Accelerator” program in Singapore.

Started in 2018, the 10-week mentorship program aims to help independent game developers — so-called “indies" — from more than 75 countries develop business models and improve their products.

Participants from 16 countries joined this year’s Indie Games Accelerator program, 10 of which are based in the Asia-Pacific region.

Sami Kizilbash, Google's global head of accelerators, speaks during a graduation day ceremony of the ″Indie Games Accelerator 2022″ program for independent game developers held in Singapore, Tuesday. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The game developers include four from Korea, three from Indonesia, and one each from Australia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The four Korean indie game developers are Drakemount, Hoit Studio, The Sane Studio and TheAnd Company.

Kizilbash explained that Korea, in specific, has significant potential in cloud gaming.

“South Korea has some phenomenal 5G infrastructure, so we expect to see cloud technologies really take off there,” he said.

Korea is the fourth-largest gaming market in the world in terms of the number of audience numbers, following China, the United States and Japan.

New technologies and the diversifying gamer demographic are creating new business opportunities for independent game developers, according to Kizilbash.

Emerging technologies — such as cloud computing, augmented reality, and HTML5 — allow indie game developers, which tend to have more creative freedom than larger companies, to come up with more experimental content, while the growing number of women and seniors in the gaming industry created a new niche market for indie games.

The global gaming revenue is forecast to reach $340 billion by 2027, from $198.4 billion in 2021, according to market tracker Mordor Intelligence.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]