Which are the biggest gaming nations in the world?

The year 2022 saw, among other things, a slow crawl to normalcy in the world of gaming - specifically gaming conventions. After a hiatus from physical events due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Tokyo Game Show finally returned to an in-person event, featuring news and updates from big-name publishers like Capcom and Bandai Namco.

In light of this, here's what the gaming market and the nations with the biggest penetration of gaming among their population look like, and what the future is projected to be:

According to data from Statista, the video game market is projected to reach $208.6 billion in 2022 across PC, consoles, mobile, and other platforms, with an estimated 2.5 billion gamers worldwide. The biggest share of the pie goes to the mobile gaming market, with a total value of $160 billion.

By 2027, the market is projected to reach $304.7 billion, with an estimated annual growth rate of 7.87 per cent. During this period, the number of gamers is likely to increase to nearly 2.9 billion.

In terms of exposure to gaming, Japan and South Korea are the two biggest markets in 2022 and are projected to remain till 2027, with the former being the top country. However, it may lose out to the UK in the projections for 2027. Japan is known to have an extensive mobile and console gaming community, and South Korea is known for its high exposure to esports. Even so, over 50 per cent of the country's population is exposed to gaming across the years in the Statista data.

Interestingly, India is showing a slow but steady increase in market growth according to the Statista data, with the projected value in 2022 reaching $1.54 billion and projected to grow to $2.34 billion by 2027 at an estimated growth of 8.73 per cent, higher than any of the other countries in the chart, with Sweden coming in at a close second at 8.4per cent growth estimate. The total number of gamers in the country is estimated to rise to 327 million by 2027.