There’s big money to be made in the video game industry—just ask the top 25 public companies by game revenue in 2016, who generated a combined $70.4 billion. This was a year-over-year increase of 17 percent, according to analyst firm, Newzoo. A large part of that revenue can be attributed to the top 10 public video game companies, earning $53.7 billion and growing 24 percent over 2015.
While a majority of revenue growth was organic and accounted for by companies that are already market leaders, some of the growth resulted from acquisitions such as Activision Blizzard and King. According to data compiled by Newzoo, the top 10 companies alone made up 54 percent of the total global games market last year, illustrating ongoing consolidation in the industry.
Tencent, the world’s largest company by game revenues, generated $10.2 billion and represented an impressive 10 percent share of the global market in 2016. The company acquired game developer, Supercell last summer, known for its popular Clash of Clans franchise. Adding Supercell’s revenues bumped Tencent’s total to $12.5 billion for 2016, or 13 percent of the total global games market. Sony and Activision Blizzard were the second and third biggest public game companies last year with revenues of $7.8 billion and $6.6 billion, respectively.
Of the top 25 companies, Newzoo observed the highest increase from Ubisoft at 57 percent, and the highest decrease by Warner Brothers, which saw a 27 percent drop in revenue over the previous year. Netease was the fastest-growing competitor among the top 25 companies, with a 50 percent year-over-year revenue increase—something Newzoo attributes to “stellar” mobile performance in China.
“Its best performing mobile title, Onmyoji, has been in the top grossing charts since its release in September of last year, and is proving worthy competition for Tencent’s King of Glory,” Newzoo noted.
Newzoo’s Top 25 Public Companies By Game Revenue Are:
- Tencent
- Sony
- Activision Blizzard
- Microsoft
- Apple
- EA
- Netease
- Bandai Namco
- Nintendo
- Square Enix
- Warner Brothers
- Ubisoft
- Take Two Interactive
- Nexon
- Mixi
- Konami
- GungHo Entertainment
- Disney
- DeNA
- Sega
- NCSoft
- Zynga
- COLOPL
Nintendo remained one of the top 10 companies, but was the only one that high on the list whose revenues declined. The company experienced a six percent year-over-year drop to $1.8 billion in 2016, despite the success of Pokémon GO. The company receives little direct revenue from the popular augmented reality game, although it did boost sales of other titles in the Pokémon series and drove Nintendo 3DS sales. The much-hyped Super Mario Run grossed around $50 million in its first few months.
