How big is the gaming market in Malaysia these days? Game analytics site Newzoo has released a new report on this for the year 2019.
Malaysia is considered the biggest games markets in Southeast Asia, where 20.1 million gamers spend $673 million USD (RM2,770,741,000). Almost three billion ringgit in absolute revenues.
Malaysia, alongside the rest of SEA, is a region where mobile games dominated, and the statistics reflect as so. Newzoo reported that over 75% of these gamers in the country play on mobile, followed by 66% on PC and 55% on consoles.
Another interesting data is how many women among the “gaming online urban population” (aged 10-50 with internet access from select cities). There is only a 19% gap at most between the number of females and males playing games on mobile, PC or console.
As for what games are popular, the answer is pretty self-explanatory for folks here. But maybe a surprise for you. Strategy games, in which MOBAs are part of, are the most popular games in 2019, whether on mobile (38%), PC (38%) and social networks (32%). As such, the MOBA Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is played by 35% of Malaysian gamers in the past six months.
Mobile Legends have a strong presence here. Currently, it has a well-established pro scene, The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League (MPL), with a strong following in the region.
The country, and regional, the report by Newzoo gives some fascinating insight into what games are popular and possibilities why is it so. For example, the regional report attributes EA and Ubisoft’s games to be popular in the region thanks to regional support, in which the two publishers have a presence here.
Source: Newzoo