Was 2022 a Good Year for Online Gaming?

Online gaming has become extremely popular across the globe. Thanks to the continued development in technology, such as handheld devices, consoles, and internet connections, online gaming is a fantastic experience. However, every industry has its peaks and troughs and is often judged annually. As we enter 2023, we can look back and judge if 2022 was a good year for online gaming.

2022 Gaming Statistics

If we look at the total spent on games in the United States as an example, in 2021 there was $46.1 billion spent on gaming, including online gaming. In 2022, the total spending between January and October was $42.7 billion, down by 7% on the previous year. It is worth noting the spend for November and December was not included in this figure and the total spending for the first ten months of 2022 was up by 37% on 2019. There is even a 14% increase in 2022 from 2020, which is incredible considering more people were at home playing online games. So, even if the figure for 2022 is down slightly on the previous year, 2022 can still be considered a good year for online gaming in terms of money spent and it was up on both 2019 and 2020.

The Popularity of New Online Games

There are some online gaming titles that are released annually, with Call of Duty and FIFA being two good examples. Both titles released in 2022 performed well in terms of sales and total play time. There are several annual releases that can be relied upon to be popular but 2022 was a particularly strong year for Call of Duty and FIFA. Many new titles were released in 2022 and there were over 40 new entries into the gaming top ten throughout the year. Rainbow Six Extraction, Elden Ring, Total War: Warhammer 3, Mario Strikers Battle League, Madden NFL 23, and NBA 2K23 were just some of the titles with leading online features to enter the top ten chart in 2022. There is no doubt 2022 finished above 2020 and 2021 in terms of new releases entering the charts and that signals a good year for online gaming.

Online Casino Gaming

In addition to the online gaming highlighted above, we must consider other types of online games before we can make a conclusion on the success of 2022. Proficient Market Insights valued the online casino market at a colossal US$24.95 billion in 2022. If we look back at the total online gambling market size for 2021, the figure stood at $57.54 billion. That means, the online casino industry alone was worth close to half that of the total online gambling market of 2021. There are many reasons why the online casino gaming market continues to grow at a great pace and one of them is the creation of new legislation. Take the Canada online casino market as an example, we are seeing new legislation in various Canadian provinces and that is leading to the introduction of more regulated online casinos and new online casino players.

2022 was a good year for online gaming and we expect to see more of the same in 2023 and beyond.