The most important events in video games

For a long time, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was considered the largest video game industry trade show in the United States; however, the barely 66,000 attendees that gathered in 2019 knocked it off the top of the industry’s popularity list. In addition, at the end of the first quarter of this year, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which organizes and presents the event, canceled the in-person event for 2022 after having already canceled it in 2020 and only holding it virtually in 2021.

As such, Gamescom is considered the largest video game conference by attendance, as its 2019 edition was attended by 373,000 people over four days, according to the latest Statista data.

The five Latin American markets that brought in the most money in the video game industry total nearly $5 billion, with Mexico leading the way in the region.

It is followed by the China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference, or ChinaJoy, which attracted 365,000 visitors the same year. China was the world’s largest video game market in 2020, with revenues of about 41 billion USD, most of which came from mobile and eSports games.

On the other side of the world, we can find a remarkable case, given that most events of this magnitude are registered in Europe and Asia; however, it ranks third and that is the Brazil Games Show, which gathered 325,000 people in 2018, an amazing figure considering, in addition, that the inhabitants of this country spent less than 1 billion dollars on video games during this year.

The list continues with Eurasian classics; Taipei Game Show, which was attended by 320,000 people, Paris Games Week with 317,000 visitors, Tokyo Game Show with 262,000 tickets sold, G-Star Korea gathered 244,000 fans and Igromir with 160,000 visitors.

It is worth noting that the dominance of video game events has changed. For example, 2019 was the first year that the Japanese multinational Sony did not participate in E3, choosing to present its State of Play on its own, while Electronic Arts canceled its live event EA Play for this year before E3 was canceled. As for Nintendo, its regular recorded exhibitions have become more important than its presence at video game conferences.

However, despite the changes and revolutions in the industry, it continues to expand and grow steadily. In 2021, this market reached an estimated $198.5 billion, and it is estimated that this figure will grow by approximately $141.6 million by 2027.