China is massive market for PC games and, according to a Niko Partners report shared by PC Gamer, there’s no indication that will change any time soon.
The analyst firm found that domestic PC online game revenue came in at $15.21 billion for 2018, revenue that flowed in despite a temporary freeze on the licensing (and essentially the release) of new games for the bulk of the calendar year.
Already, China accounts for more than half of PC online game revenue worldwide. PC Gamer points out that Steam, a platform that has yet to see an official, government-sanctioned release in the country, sees more download traffic from China than any other country and that the platform has roughly 24 percent of its users using Simplified Chinese as their language of choice.
Niko Partners says that 312.4 million people in China play PC games, and that 79.7 million of those players regularly spend money in games. By 2023, the firm estimates that China’s total pool of PC players will reach 354 million and eclipse the entire population of the United States in the process.
Game spending in those online PC games is also set to rise in the next few years. Niko Partners estimates that, by 2023, China will see as much as $16 billion in yearly domestic game revenue. More insights from the full report can be found on PC Gamer.