Finance

Public game companies by the (really big) numbers

Thu 02 Feb 2012 3:20pm GMT / 10:20am EST / 7:20am PST
BusinessFinance

New report puts total value of public game companies at $111.2 billion in 2011

A new report from Avista Partners shows that, while 2011 saw plenty of hand wringing, worried frowns and whispers about another recession, it also boasted some pretty impressive numbers. Like that the total value of all public game companies is now a rap star sized $111.2 billion.

Break that total down in to categories and $39.7 billion came from PC and console (not including Nintendo), $37.6 billion from online, $17.3 billion from Nintendo and $11.8 billion from mobile. What's interesting is how close the categories come, online proving a real rival for more traditional PC and console titles, and mobile, typically seen as the realm of the casual gamer, not too far behind traditional gaming manufacturer and publisher Nintendo.

Last year there were 492 deals worth more than $9.6 billion. For those of you with Rainman style number skills that's about 1.3 a day, and online games made up more than 70 per cent of those deals.

Online was on top in the capital raised awards as well, of the $5.2 billion raised in 2011 it snapped up 69.8 per cent. For the $2.1 billion in venture capital raised, online snapped up $1.3 billion, a record for the sector. It was the same for mergers and acquisitions, $4.4 billion worth of deals, with 71.5 per cent for online.

So you work in online? Have a gold star. You work in mobile development? You can have silver, because the mobile game index had the best performing sector index, showing a result of +45.9 per cent.

The full 2011 report is available here.

Some of the figures in this article were initially incorrect. Data has now been double-checked and updated.

8 Comments

Jim Webb
Executive Editor/Community Director

Just curious but why is Nintendo separated from the numbers and the numbers compared that way?

Shouldn't the comparison be $57 billion (console) against $37.6 billion (online) and $11.8 billion (mobile)? Separating Nintendo as a means to make the numbers look more comparable skews the facts.

And I'm going to assume those figures are billion and not million.

Posted:A year ago

#1

I think that the answer is that Nintendo is a hardware company. I suspect these numbers don't include Apple for the same reason.

Posted:A year ago

#2

Hi Jimmy,

Those figures are actually million, you can check the official report by following the link.

Posted:A year ago

#3

Dave Herod
Senior Programmer

Umm, no, 37,619 million for online is 37.6 billion...

Posted:A year ago

#4

Yup, that's 37,619 * 1,000,000.

Otherwise it would be quite worrying that THQ had just posted a loss bigger than the entire valuation of the PC/Console market.

Posted:A year ago

#5

Jim Webb
Executive Editor/Community Director

Rachel, the figures are indeed in the billions. The default figures are in USD $ millions. Nintendo's figure is $17,335 (million) which would means $17.335 billion.

That figure also sounds far more accurate as I've followed the financial aspects of all the major video game companies for the past 8 years. It's been many, many decades since Nintendo only had revenues of $17 million.

Posted:A year ago

#6

Article has been updated with correct figures. Sorry about the errors

Posted:A year ago

#7

Dave Wolfe
Game Developer

Nintendo isn't a hardware company, they make a lot of software as well. Sony and Microsoft also make both hardware and software but were not separated. It would have made more sense to separate PC and Console. And Apple doesn't make games or a dedicated gaming device so it makes sense to exclude them.

Posted:A year ago

#8

Login or register to post

Take part in the GamesIndustry community

Register now