Online gaming market revenue is expected to reach $20bn in 2012, driven by North American, European and Asia Pacific markets, according to new data from ABI Research.
ABI Research said that technology developments will open new opportunities for connected devices beyond the computer.
The research data revealed that the Asia-Pacific region, especially China, will be the engine behind much of online gaming market growth.
However, due to lower levels of personal PC ownership in China, the business models are evolving a little differently.
ABI Research industry analyst Michael Inouye said World of Warcraft, for instance, generates significant revenue for activision in Europe and North America on a subscription basis.
"But in China, despite a large ‘subscriber’ base, the revenues are far smaller: it’s more of a pay-as-you-go model (prepaid game cards) and this also creates a greater reliance on ‘cloud’ or server-based games," Inouye said.
The research firm said that increasingly varied and range of connected devices will also permit gaming on more platforms.
However, there are few challenges, such as mobile gaming market which is fragmented, with proprietary platforms the rule, posing difficulties for developers trying to serve a number of smaller platforms rather than a few big ones.
The research firm said that for the growth of cloud gaming demands more and bigger servers and data centres.
