Gaming is no longer a game. It is an industry, a market and a big business in which everyone comes together: from advertising to investors and players, amateurs or professionals.
From Dell, Yuzel Ahumada, Regional Product Line Manager Gaming PCs & XPS, defined gaming as a business citing the figures it moves in money today: 176 billion dollars worldwide and 7.2 billion in Latin America. Nothing negligible for a market that does not seem to stop growing. “Something interesting is that it is one of the markets that is growing the most, approximately 5.1% between 2020 and 2021,” confirmed the executive. "Last year the number of players increased by 6.2% and in Latin America there are already 290 million. Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Chile and Argentina are among the countries in the region that sustain this trend and in recent years new consumer companies have seen that it is no longer a fad, they sponsor tournaments and some eSports teams and, in many cases, invest in companies that develop the games.”
“Gaming stopped being a niche, it became a separate ecosystem and as a business unit it is the most relevant in our company,” said Manuel Coen, Consumer Products Manager at Lenovo. “It already had sustained growth before the pandemic, but the pandemic accelerated the demand for notebooks and accessories such as mice, keyboards and monitors, which is a category that is also growing. Today, gaming earns more money than music and movies and Lenovo, which has had leadership in the consumer segment for three years, has also had it in gaming for a year and a half.”

In Latin America alone there are almost 300 million players. Trillions of dollars move around it, where not only is the sale of devices: advertising and investors know that staying out is losing the game.

Sustained and increasing demand
Not only was gaming itself professionalized, as a category, this professionalization was also lowered to gamers who advance more every day in the search for better devices and technologies, especially those who have already entered high competition and eSports.
Ahumada maintained that eSports define many of the trends in the devices that are chosen to play. “The mechanical keyboard is important to make movements and changes in game strategies, and the mouse must allow the mobility and balance of the wrist,” he added. “The player wants there to be no delay or latency, and for that they need certain particularities in the Ethernet ports or wireless connections. Since you invest a lot, you prefer a PC that you can upgrade over time, something we allow with the Alienware Desktop Aurora R13. Coordination with the graphics card is also key. At Dell we look a lot for feedback from gamers. Many times it is demand that requires innovations, at the same time as the industry develops them.”
Coen recognized that the professional player knows what he wants and buys it. “We try to offer you a 360 experience and in addition to the equipment you are looking for, you can take the mouse, the keyboard and even a gaming backpack.

For the enthusiast we have products with a more competitive price and we try to advise them by working a lot with the feedback of our customers. People are devoting more and more time to gaming and, from a demand perspective, this category has no ceiling. We saw it with the 27” monitors, which we did not sell because we did not know if they would have sufficient demand and the acceptance they had was extraordinary.”

eSports: one level higher
The professionalization of gaming as a game dynamic and as a business is consolidated, without a doubt, in eSports, where the usefulness of the device that is used weighs much more than fashions. That is why the competitive gamer opts for the flat monitor and not the curved one, for example. According to Ahumada, about 20% of players do so on PC, a low percentage, but it is the device with which eSports is played the most. “Teenagers entered eSports from the age of 16 and now they do so from the age of 13,” he noted. "It becomes a professional job. Some eSports finals are seen more than those of other sports. An example, with February data from Twitch, is that League of Legends was one of the most viewed games that month: 135 million views just from watching someone play."