Well, that’s the prediction made by research firm eMarketer in its latest report, which sizes up the market for digital gaming in the UK. It claims that by 2019, half of all internet users in the UK will be playing games digitally at least once a month.
The report also claims that there will be 26.4 million digital gamers in the UK this year: 48.6% of the internet-using population. Smartphones are a big part of the growth in this area, unsurprisingly. “eMarketer estimates that there will be 42.7 million smartphone users in the UK this year, which will represent almost four-fifths of internet users and 64.3% of the population,” explained the company.
“And 54.1% of those smartphone users, or 23.1 million, will play digital games on their devices at least monthly. Online gaming isn’t just about smartphones, though. An estimated 18.4 million UK tablet users will play games on their devices in 2017. Next year, that total will reach 20 million—more than half of the country’s tablet users.”
Some recent attempts to reach these audiences with music games haven’t been successful – Katy Perry, Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj’s games for publisher Glu Mobile haven’t been lucrative – but the figures may provide more impetus for music companies to get involved in games in other ways.
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Tools: Kaiber
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