Serious games - those designed for education or training - are on a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.2% globally, suggesting revenues will more than double to $8.1 billion by 2022, according to Metaari, the foremost analyst firm covering the market. In 2017, global revenues will hit $3.2 billion. And that number includes only retail packaged (off-the-shelf) products. It does not include revenues for hardware, devices, platforms, tools or custom content development services.
Several convergent catalysts are driving the global game-based learning market, according to Metaari in its 2017-2022 Global Game-based Learning Market Report:
- Organizational resistance to learning that includes game play is fading fast
- The growing availability of easy-to-use development tools
- Exponential innovation in Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR, and Mixed Reality (MR)
- An upsurge of new next-generation educational games coming to the market
- The impending rollouts of very fast 5G networks and the Internet of Things (IoT)
In 2017, consumers were the top buyers of educational games, followed by primary schools and corporations. The three buying segments with the highest growth rates are corporations (35.7%), preschool (30.7%) and higher education institutions (26.3%).
By 2022, corporations will the second-largest buyer group after consumers.
The highest revenue generating educational products are early childhood learning games, brain trainers and language learning games. The serious games with the highest growth rates are virtual reality educational games, at a breathtaking 47.9%.
Eight game-based learning buying segments are analyzed in the Metaari report: consumer, preschool, primary schools, secondary schools, tertiary and higher education institutions, federal government agencies, provincial/state and local government agencies and corporations. The report also lists more than 300 suppliers operating across the globe to help companies identify partners, distributors and resellers.
Metaari's report analyses size, growth and trends in seven regions: Africa, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America, and Western Europe and has two sections: a demand-side analysis and a supply-side analysis for eight buying segments. For the U.S., Metaari provides a detailed breakout including information on major serious game studios and market cataysts.
Sam Adkins, CEO, Metaari, provided highlights of his 100+ page report to attendees at the 2017 Serious Play Conference, an annual gathering of the thought leaders in the serious games industry. Product revenue forecasts are based on Metaari's proprietary game-based learning pedagogical framework, which identifies 11 unique types of educational games. The framework provides suppliers with a precise method of tapping specific revenue streams and a concise instructional design specification for the development of effective educational games.
The Metaari report is available for sale at the price of $499 http://seriousplayconf.com/downloads/2017-2022-global-game-based-learning-market/
Oh well. Sounds like an interesting piece of work though.
