Like it or not, mobile gaming revenue is a huge part of the gaming industry. In fact, according to SuperData’s 2017 Year In Review Report, mobile gaming revenue was nearly double that of PC gaming in 2017, and over seven times that of console gaming.

Mobile gaming has a contentious place in the gaming world. Most passionate gamers wouldn’t consider mobile gaming part of the ‘real’ gaming world. One of the few things that PC and console gamers can agree on, is that mobile gaming is below both of them in the greater gaming hierarchy.

Still, mobile gaming is often taken into account whenever gaming metrics are in play and there’s a good reason for that. Mobile gaming is hugely popular and there’s a good chance that it will only become more and more prevalent.

In 2017, mobile gaming accounted for $59.2 billion in revenue. The gaming industry as a whole raked in a whopping $108.4 billion, with PC gaming accumulating $33 billion and consoles $8.3 billion. That means that well over half of all gaming revenue from last year was a result of mobile games.

To put things into perspective, the total North American box office revenue for the last ten years is just over $100 billion. 

The mobile gaming industry is a behemoth and free-to-play titles are leading the charge. In fact, PC and mobile free-to-play games made up nearly 80% of the total gaming revenue from last year.

If you’re wondering where all this money is coming from, one answer is Asia. The mobile Asian market accounts for over half of the total mobile space, with Tencent commanding a good portion of that revenue thanks to a plethora of wildly popular titles. 

Another area of note in SuperData’s 2017 Year In Review Report is the growth of what they call extended reality, an encompassing term that includes mostly VR/AR games and peripherals. The report states that falling costs helped propel extended reality to a 37% increase in revenue in 2017.

Esports grew in 2017 as well. According to the report, “Esports generated $756M in revenue and is on track to become a billion dollar business in 2018.” They also noted that the esports space had 258 million unique viewers last year.