Digital gaming: the rise of cloud, mobile and new tech to enhance the gamer experience

Digital gaming is a popular pastime, with nearly 60% of adults playing games on any device at least once a week. The shift to mobile is making gaming an area of focus for a growing range of operators, which have four possible routes to play in the space. Meanwhile, technologies such as cloud, the metaverse and generative AI are helping to reshape the face of digital gaming.

In this report, based on our December 2023 consumer survey conducted across eight of the world's major mobile markets, we analyse how consumer gaming behaviour is changing across important areas. These include consumer gaming engagement, the state of smartphone gaming, gaming on consoles and extended reality headsets, free versus paid-for gaming, adoption of gaming subscriptions (including cloud gaming), bundling gaming with mobile subscriptions, gaming as a 5G use case, live gaming (including e-sports), gaming as a metaverse activity and generative AI's impact on gaming.

Three operator case studies from around the globe are also provided. These examine at the varied strategies adopted by operators for digital gaming.