2022 was notably a year of growth in the industry, not decline
Economic confidence in 2022 took a battering. The global economy in 2022 was marked by war in Ukraine and a costly recovery from the pandemic. The subsequent supply chain and energy disruptions triggered a bout of inflation which central banks have struggled to contend with ever since.
Interest rates increased putting pressure on both the financial and real economy. Consumers had to make hard choices of where to cut expenditure and by how much. The year was marked with constant rumours of a recession. For many, those rumours were a technicality as the hallmarks of a recession had already set in.
When you work in the video game industry during an economic downturn, one question often arises: is the video game industry "recession proof"? Taking stock of this, one way to explore this is from the supply side. Let's examine how the video game industry performed in 2022 against this backdrop of tough economic headwinds. Two metrics will be explored: top line revenue (sales income) and operating income (profit). This may give us some clues how the industry will perform in 2023 with a few more tailwinds behind it.
From a layperson's point of view the general opinion is that 2022 has not been a great year for video games. During the first months of the year, it started strong with releases such as Elden Ring, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Horizon Forbidden West and Pokémon Legends: Arceus. These titles sold better than the first months of 2021 with releases such as Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury and Monster Hunter Rise.
It looked so promising until May, when new AAA game releases all but dried up until the autumn. The dry spell of releases, combined with the decline in spending on catalogue games (the correction
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