According to Newzoo, 2021 saw 21.7 million paying users of cloud games that generated a total of $1.5 billion worldwide.

By 2024, Newzoo predicts that the number of paying users will quadruple to 58.6 million, with revenues expected to also rise four times to $6.3 billion.

Newzoo stated that among the use cases for cloud gaming on mobile devices is that it minimises the download sizes of "high fidelity" mobile games, and allow users to play non-mobile native games on their mobile devices.

Last month, Microsoft announced that it had increased the performance of its Xbox Cloud Gaming service on iOS devices, which it claimed had led to a play time increase of 35 per cent. Mobile devices are crucial to Xbox Cloud Gaming as it will allow the company to tap into the largest audience worldwide.

Furthermore, last month, Utomik revealed that it will bring its library of over 1,000 PC games to Android devices.

Breaking down barriers

Newzoo predicts that other large media and entertainment companies will eventually enter the cloud games market. For example, Netflix has recently started publishing mobile games, however, you need to leave the mobile app and download the games from either the App Store or Google Play.

By using cloud gaming, Netflix would be able to remove this barrier and keep users directly connected to its ecosystem, thus adding more value to its overall mobile experience.

Despite Newzoo’s predictions, not all cloud gaming services have prevailed in the long term. Earlier this year, MagentaGaming shut down after two years of service, likely due to low player numbers as its roster could not compete with the likes or other cloud services and popular mobile games that work on lower end devices, such as Free Fire.