How Big Is Word And Puzzle Games Industry?

National, July 2021: PlaySimple has recently been acquired by Modern Times Group, a Swedish Gaming for $260 million drawing attention to the word and puzzle games industry. According to a report published on Games and Puzzles, the Games and Puzzles industry which was valued at the US $13.7 billion in 2020 will touch the revenue size of US $42.6 by 2027. COVID-19 has ensured a CAGR of 17.6% for the time period of 2020-2017.
Insights of the gaming world on basis of searches

In 2020, Google Search saw plenty of searches related to gaming keywords and gaming-related searches. A report by Google for Games has indicated that the search for “hard puzzle games” has increased by 1000% and “educational games for kids” which also includes word games has gone up by 100%. The search for the term “competitive multiplayer” increased by 70,000% indicating that the gamers are looking for games that can be played with competitive communities. Games like Scrabble and Words With Friends allow the players to play the game with their friends while ensuring they are learning new words.

Top growing genres of games

Top growing genres of games based on global search include “word search game” that has gone up by 400% and the term “word puzzle games for adults” has seen an increase of 500% in the global searches. These trends are important to study especially for a game developer to know the shifting preferences in gaming content and games and that is what PlaySimple did by including nine-word games which resulted in 75 million installs and seven million monthly active users. With an increased interest in word puzzle games, tools like Anagram Solver are also becoming increasingly popular to help the players to win a word game with their friends.

The popular word games in Google Play Store include Wordscapes, Words of Wonders, Crossword Puzzle and Word Cookies. While playing these games, the players prefer to use Jumblew Solver to get help for solving the word games, especially in a highly competitive environment. Popular puzzle games listed on the Google Play Store include Sudoku, Maze and ZHED. All of these games are downloaded millions of times indicating their popularity in the gaming society.

Revenue of puzzle and word games

Out of all the genres of the game, the puzzle game is one of the most popular and in fact, the largest genre of game with a revenue of $5.1 billion. In 2020, puzzle games contributed to 50% of the overall revenue of casual games. The genre saw a jump of 18% in its revenue in the first and second quarters of 2020. The increase in revenue can be explained by the user behaviour during the pandemic where many people preferred to play games inside their homes. The revenue of word games remained nearly the same with Scopely’s Scrabble Go becoming an instant hit after its global launch. Wordscapes is the largest game in the sub-genre of word games.

2021 Predictions

Each year, many new puzzles and word games enter the gaming industry and it will be no different in 2021. Additionally, a demographic study has indicated that even the mature audiences are engaging themselves in this genre which will force the gamers to increase the depth of their games to keep audiences of all ages engaged. Also, the amount of content production was rocket high in COVID-19 to keep the users engaged who otherwise would have reached the end of the content. This problem is often tackled by many developers by introducing the “Champion League” where the players enter a competition to compete with other players in real-time and score high to be at the top of the leaderboard. After the end of the event, the players are rewarded on the basis of their position on the leaderboard.

Many players engage in Puzzle and Word games to relieve stress, pass time, feel accomplished and learn something new. It is the most popular genre of game in the US and UK with a 60% share in the market. The acquisition of PlaySimple will further draw attention to this industry in India and many other game developers will try to focus their attention on this subgenre to meet the increasing demand of the players and to, of course, earn more revenue.