The figures speak for themselves. In 2025, the global video game market generated more than $300 billion in revenue, according to various specialized sources. By way of comparison, the film industry brought in around $33 billion, while the music industry’s revenue reached $31.7 billion. In other words, the gaming industry is worth four to five times more than the film and music industries combined.

This dominance of the video game industry within the global cultural and creative ecosystem was built on steady growth, accelerated in recent years by the Covid-19 pandemic, which acted as a massive catalyst. Between 2019 and 2021, the sector indeed saw double-digit expansion, driven by the spread of online gaming and the explosion of mobile. Since then, growth has stabilized but remains robust, and the market is expected to reach more than $500 billion by 2030, according to projections from specialized analyst firms.

The segments driving growth

Contrary to the image one might have of it, the heart of the video game market is no longer the traditional console. Today, mobile dominates by a wide margin. Gaming on smartphones in fact accounts for more than 50% of the sector’s global revenue. Accessible, inexpensive, and massively distributed in emerging countries, it constitutes the main gateway to video games.

Console games still account for about 28% of the market, or nearly a third. They remain central to certain blockbusters – the famous AAA, or Triple-A, franchises – such as the games Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Red Dead Redemption, and GTA. Among the dominant players, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo take the lion’s share.

With about 22% of revenue, PC gaming is also a key segment, notably for e-sports and competitive games. And it is expected to surpass the console game market by 2028, particularly in terms of revenue, according to industry professionals’ forecasts. « PC game revenue will continue to grow at an annual rate of 6.6% between 2025 and 2028, compared with 4.4% for consoles, » reports Newzoo, a market research firm specialized in the video game industry.

Finally, cloud gaming, or gaming on demand, driven by players such as Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, and Nvidia, is still marginal but promising: it removes hardware constraints by running on servers hosted in remote data centers. The player simply needs a device with a screen, such as a phone, a laptop, or a Smart TV, and a good internet connection.

The servers continuously stream the game’s video and audio, while the player’s actions are transmitted to the server almost instantaneously. Its adoption nonetheless remains limited, held back by infrastructure and latency. According to Statista, the global cloud gaming market is still expected to grow by about 22.28% per year over the next five years, reaching more than $28 billion in 2030.

The revolution in business models

The video game business model has evolved profoundly in recent years, notably with the rise of free-to-play (F2P), which allows players to access certain titles for free. Global hits such as Fortnite and Genshin Impact have popularized a model based on free entry, offset by in-app purchases.

Today, this system generates a major share of the sector’s revenue. It rests, however, on a limited number of blockbusters, in a market that has become highly competitive, where it is increasingly difficult to establish new franchises. And investors who bet on this model, despite very long development cycles — notably for AAA productions — have sometimes run into performances falling short of their expectations.

Skins (graphic overlays that allow the appearance of a character or an object in a video game to be modified), expansions (additional downloadable content), and season passes (subscriptions or one-time purchases offering access to additional content) are also becoming commonplace.

All these microtransactions carried out by gamers generate recurring revenue and extend the « lifespan » of video games. Microtransactions, DLC, and other additional content, for example, today constitute one of the main revenue drivers for PlayStation, regularly surpassing sales of full games.

The other business model is the subscription. Like Netflix or Amazon Prime for films and series, platforms such as Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass or Sony’s PlayStation Plus offer gamers access to entire catalogs of video games.

A model set to expand: the global market for subscription games, estimated at $12.9 billion in 2025, could in fact nearly double by 2030, reaching $24.2 billion, according to forecasts from the research firm Grand View Research. On its own, Game Pass generated nearly $5 billion in annual revenue in 2025, according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, although unit sales nonetheless remain a significant source of revenue.

In-game advertising – the entire range of ads integrated directly within video games – is gaining ground: the global market is estimated at around $12.5 billion in 2026, after reaching $11 billion in 2025

Finally, in-game advertising – the entire range of advertising formats integrated directly within video games – is gaining ground. Billboards in a stadium, brands on objects, product placements, rewarded ads (the player watches an advertisement in exchange for a bonus)… The formats are numerous, but the goal is the same: to monetize the gamer’s attention without breaking the gaming experience.

According to specialized analyst firms, the global in-game advertising market is estimated at around $12.5 billion in 2026, after reaching $11 billion in 2025. Looking toward 2030, projections converge on a range between $17.6 and $20.7 billion, with annual growth of about 10 to 13%. Some broader estimates, such as the one established by the consulting and market intelligence firm Mordor Intelligence, which includes advanced immersive formats, even point to a market exceeding $200 billion by 2031, a sign of a massive shift of advertising budgets toward interactive environments.

An industry in recomposition

Behind this growth, the sector is undergoing profound shifts. Acquisitions, for example, are multiplying. The most emblematic remains Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Candy Crush) for $68.7 billion, finalized in 2023 — the largest deal in the sector’s history. The aim of these acquisitions is above all to secure major franchises and to strengthen proprietary ecosystems.

A strategy that also reflects intensifying competition among platforms, each seeking to lock down its content and build player loyalty. It must be said that development costs are exploding in certain segments of the industry. Producing a AAA game can today cost more than $200 million. Enough to rival the staggering budgets of some Hollywood films. An inflation that encourages caution, and favors sequels and franchises, as well as the outsourcing of part of the production.

Likewise, although in full boom, the sector must contend with the eruption of artificial intelligence (AI), which is transforming production: generation of settings, animation of characters, optimization of storylines… « In 2026, AI-generated creations will become an essential feature, and teams (of developers, ed.) will produce not dozens, but hundreds of variations per day, thus enabling micro-segmented creative strategies that adapt in real time, » predicts the CEO of the Finnish video game developer Metacore, Mika Tammenkoski, interviewed in early January 2026 by the magazine Games Market.

AI certainly makes it possible to reduce certain costs and to expand creative capacities, but it also threatens jobs in certain branches of the sector. The industry thus saw waves of layoffs in 2023-2024. Rising production costs in certain segments, growing recourse to external financing, and the pressure for immediate profitability: all are factors shaking the sector. Faced with these threats, the heads of the gaming industry’s giants nonetheless seek to be reassuring: « We have been betting on video games for a long time. We will continue to invest, and we always will, » declared the CEO of Microsoft in early March.