Recently, I was fortunate enough to sit down in Barcelona with the Founder and President of G2A Capital Group, Bartosz Skwarczek. This meeting was during an event wherein Robert Lewandowski was announced as a global ambassador for the G2A platform, and I had time with Bartosz to discuss a few topics afterwards. Given G2A’s position as a titanic digital marketplace, I was keen to get Bartosz’s thoughts about the future of the industry and how ‘times are changing’.
As time goes on, the gaming industry is becoming increasingly digital. We’re seeing an almost complete shutdown of physical media, with most modern consoles boasting a digital-only variant. There are painfully few reasons to stick with physical media these days, but there are obvious concerns about the future of digital content consumption. These are themes that I touched on with Bartosz Skwarczek as we interfaced in Barcelona this week.
For Bartosz and G2A, nothing is more important than delivering value to the end user. It doesn’t matter how the trends of the industry unfold, it’s ultimately about making sure that the consumer has the best experience possible both on the platform and when using the products purchased on the platform. After all, G2A didn’t become the world’s biggest digital marketplace by failing to provide a top-tier service to customers worldwide – G2A now operates in more than 200 countries.
I grilled Bartosz on the growing trend of digital gaming and asked if he was always prepared for it at G2A:
‘I believe so. We saw that trend pretty early, because at the beginning of G2A, 70% of the gaming market was physical, and we were there and we decided to be with this trend. Today, 95% (of the market) is digital, 5% is physical. I believe that without collectibles – because I think always there will be somebody who likes to have the collectibles on their shelf – the rest of gaming will become digital. I think the world is going towards digitalisation, and for us, it’s a great trend, because we are in the epicentre of it.’
In the last two years or so, the gaming industry has been a volatile space. We’ve seen thousands of layoffs and studios shut their doors, but despite that, we’re still seeing growth. Certain markets have surprised us as a global gaming community, while others with higher expectations have ultimately failed to deliver. Bartosz offered his two cents on that topic:
‘The trend is positive but it’s not as super fast as we thought. The gaming market is growing at 6% more or less per year, but of course that depends on the category. This year, PC is growing much faster than consoles, which is surprising – it’s growing more than 4% year-over-year, but console is not growing as fast as PC, and still, they are getting fast enough to leave behind Mobile, which we thought would be skyrocketing, but China is declining and the market (there) for mobile games isn’t growing as fast as everybody thought. At the same time, esports is growing at I think 7.1% year-over-year, which is good, healthy, steady growth. The trend is good that it’s growing the whole package – the whole pie.’
Bartosz Skwarczek spoke at length about the future of G2A, particularly regarding the recent signing of Robert Lewandowski as a global brand ambassador. He referenced that more than 1000 influencers have worked with – and continue to work with – G2A, and that the company is focusing on a global/localised marketing campaign to attract more users positively. On that note, he said:
‘We want to invite people, not just to G2A, but also to join the digital and gaming worlds in general for any platform.’
At G2A, there’s a bold vision to unite the worlds of traditional sports and esports – or gaming in general. That’s partly why Lewandowski was signed as a global ambassador, but he’s not the first sports personality to join forces with G2A. With these efforts to source more visibility across several verticals, G2A hopes to remain at the forefront of the industry as more competitors rise in an increasingly digital world.
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