The COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for most people, as well as most businesses, across the world. Some industries, however, have thrived due to the nature of their business, the video game industry being one such example, though it was also thriving prior to the pandemic. A new report from the ESA shows how the video game industry contributed to the US economy both in total economic output and total employment in 2019.
According to the ESA's report, the video game industry within the United States created over $90 billion in total economic output. Especially interesting is which states the output came from, as California alone makes up more than half of the output, at $51.8 billion. The second-ranked state is Washington, which contributes $11.6 billion. No other state is over $5 billion, but Texas, Florida, and New York round out the top five.
The report also goes into detail about employment. According to the ESA, the video game industry employs around 143,000 people directly, but supports 429,000 total US jobs. Again, California is the largest contributor here, but surprisingly less than the ratio of its economic output. California supports 218,090 approximate jobs. Washington is again second, with 48,808, followed by Texas with 24,972. The ordering compared to total economic output is identical through the top five.
More granular information is available for each specific state, for readers to further peruse. Just as an example, California is shown to have 619 different publisher, developer, and hardware company locations within the state. Washington, in comparison, is home to 151 such locations. Oregon, which has a much smaller portion of the industry, still has 42 such locations, but only a total of $247.5 million in economic impact and 1,730 jobs. Clearly, the big publishers sway these numbers significantly.
The only unfortunate information lacking from the report is continued industry data for 2020. It's clear that the video game industry had an incredible year in 2019, but it would be educational to see how those numbers may have changed in 2020. Given the increased demand for video games, the numbers could potentially be higher. Though given the decreased output of games due to delays, it may have lowered, too.
The video game industry continues to grow at an astonishing rate, steadily morphing into something bigger than the film industry, which has long been the gold standard for entertainment revenue around the globe. With more than 214 million Americans already playing video games, and more each year, the sky really is the limit.
Source: ESA