It's that time again and the latest data.ai report is full to the brim with predictions for 2024, including five key mobile tech expectations and two of those relating to games. In particular, data.ai sees gaming revenues rising in 2024 - driven by match, RPG, party and casino genres - up to $111.4 billion.
Should this come to pass, it would mean a 4% increase after a slight decline in recent years - falling 6.7% in 2022 and another 3% expected for 2023, down to $107.5 million; the fall this year has been attributed to high inflation and market corrections leaving potential spenders with less money to play with, but this should turn around next year.
data.ai projects that the 2024 rise will be largely attributable to 40% aggregate yearly growth from the US, with Japanese and South Korean markets also having big roles to play in turning 2024 around and hitting that $111.4 billion.
Success awaits
Next year should be a big one for gaming with the mobile games industry set to return to "a more moderate growth trajectory from pre-Covid", the report suggests. That is, of course, as long as China’s license thaw remains and no macroeconomic impacts hit the market.
Another of data.ai’s predictions is the continued rise of AI, with "a wave of new app functionality" ahead after Google searches for AI grew by nine times in 2023 while chatbots grew 72 times over.
As for 2024, apps leveraging Generative AI are expected to be installed a further 2.3 billion times, meaning a 40% year-on-year rise.
And when it comes to the biggest mobile app of them all, data.ai sees that becoming TikTok. ByteDance has just pulled back from gaming to refocus on its TikTok efforts, and the app is currently poised to outperform King’s mobile monarch Candy Crush and reach $14.6 billion next year. This would dethrone Candy Crush and leave it behind as the second-highest-grossing app of all time, though still the top mobile game at $14.2 billion.
The big players
data.ai foresees Pokémon Go following in second among gaming apps with $8.7 billion in revenue by the end of 2024, followed then by Roblox’s estimated $8.5 billion. Roblox is among those apps who are leveraging Generative AI.
Impressively, data.ai expects miHoYo’s 2020 flagship Genshin Impact to surpass $6.3 billion in 2024, which would make it the fourth-biggest mobile game of all time by revenue after only four years on the market.
"2024 will see consumers demand authenticity, video-first content, and control of their social media experiences through the power of a dollar," said data.ai head of insights Lexi Sydow. "Next year will unleash the next wave of innovation in AI and cement how we consume content."
data.ai's full predictions list includes the company's expectations beyond mobile games.
Pokémon Go changed tack with its latest cross-platform promo last weekend, with some elusive new time travellers on their way.
