Research from Niko Partners has forecast that the Chinese PC games market is set to grow in 2022 for the first time in four years.

The company predicts that this sector will be up by 2.1 per cent year-on-year. PC makes up roughly 30 per cent of the total amount of revenue generated by the Chinese games market.

Overall though, the region's games sector is in decline for the first time in 20 years. In 2022, Niko Partners reckons that there will be a 2.5 per cent decline in revenue from games software and services. That clocks in at $45.44 billion.

This is due to lower spending on mobile titles – though this sector makes up around 66 per cent of total market revenue, year-on-year we are looking at a decline of 5.1 per cent. This is partly due to new restrictions, a lack of approvals and new titles underperforming.

PC and console are somewhat offsetting this decline; console software and services are predicted to increase 14.7 per cent year-on-year, though was a tiny portion of the market to begin with.

Niko also reckons there is going to be 701.8 million people playing games across China by the end of 2022, which represents a second year of decline. The firm estimates that 39 million "youth gamers" have stopped playing due to the strict new restrictions that were introduced in 2021.