Fortnite may be a free video game, but it's already earned $1 billion this year, as well as a cult following. A crowd gathers to buy copies of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" during a launch event for the highly anticipated video game at a GameStop Corp. store November 7, 2011 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The worldwide video game market could grow from $137.9 billion this year to $180.1 billion by 2021, according to Newzoo. The research firm also expects the top five video game markets to generate nearly $98 billion in revenue this year. China famously banned video game consoles for 15 years (2000 to 2015) due to fears about their impact on children's development, but that merely turned PCs – and later, mobile devices – into its main gaming platforms. China is now home to Tencent (NASDAQOTH: TCEHY), the largest video game publisher in the world.

According to a recent survey, shopping by voice is expected to grow from $2 billion to $40 billion in the next four years. How far along are smart speakers right now? USA TODAY When Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) launched its HomePod smart speaker earlier this year, many critics claimed that its high price tag of $349 would prevent it from gaining ground against Amazon's(NASDAQ: AMZN) Echo and Alphabet's(NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Home devices, which cost as little as $50. Apple's Siri also lacked Amazon's Alexa skills and e-commerce backbone, as well as Google's larger ecosystem of search and cloud-based services. Those flaws, it seemed, would limit HomePod's appeal to hardcore Apple loyalists. Despite those headwinds, a recent report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners indicates that Apple has established a foothold in the U.S. smart speaker market, nabbing a 6 percent share.

Millennials have it so easy… not so long ago you'd see a group of people in a restaurant doing some ridiculous math equation to split a bill, but now there's apps like Venmo that make everything much much easier. A user receives funds from a friend for Burning Man festival expenses via Venmo. More Americans are paying each other via mobile apps than ever. From 2018 to 2021, the total value of mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions in the U.S. could rise from $156.49 billion to $244.03 billion, according to eMarketer. The firm also recently identified the three leading apps in that market: PayPal's (NASDAQ: PYPL) Venmo, Square's (NYSE: SQ)Cash App, and Zelle.

Amazon has a new version of Alexa for hotels. Voice assistants such as Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) Siri, Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Assistant and Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Alexa have integrated themselves into our digital lives. Almost half of American adults used voice assistants last year, according to Pew Research. Earlier this year, PwC reported that U.S. internet users who spoke to their devices interacted with smartphones most frequently. However, users are also talking to their tablets, PCs and smart speakers.

As tens of thousands descended on the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, attendees considered the progress the industry has made in terms of female representation and sexual harassment, and the ways in which it still needs to improve. Chart showing percentages of teenagers in the U.S. who play video games and those with access to a game console (Photo: Pew Research Center. Teenage boys play more video games than teenage girls, but the gap between them may be smaller than you think. Pew Research Center's latest survey found that 83 percent of teenage girls played video games and that 75 percent of girls had access to a gaming console. The recent rise of cross-platform games such as Epic Games' sandbox survival game "Fortnite" – which can be played across PCs, consoles and mobile devices – is attracting more female gamers.

Games makers at E3 are hoping to follow the success of online multiplayer video game'Fortnite' by incorporating the popular'Battle Royale' genre into their new titles. Tens of millions worldwide daily play the game, which rivals the quality of PC games sold at retail. The world's top 25 gaming companies generated $94.1 billion in combined software revenue last year, according to Newzoo, marking a 29 percent jump from 2016. Mobile gaming revenue accounted for 46 percent of the total, followed by console games at 33 percent and PC games at 21 percent. Sony, Microsoft, and Activision Blizzard are well-established game publishers.

The modern video game console market is dominated by three companies: Sony (NYSE: SNE), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Nintendo (NASDAQOTH: NTDOY). Sony's current-generation consoles include the handheld PS Vita and the PlayStation 4. Microsoft's home console is the Xbox One, and Nintendo sells the handheld 3DS, the Wii U home console, and a new hybrid handheld and home console called the Switch. As we can see in the following graph (which doesn't include Switch figures yet), Nintendo's 3DS is currently the most popular console in the world, followed by Sony's PlayStation 4 (figures are units shipped since each console's launch). The longevity of Nintendo's 6-year-old 3DS is impressive, since smartphone games were expected to render handheld consoles obsolete. Its popularity was mainly fueled by compact versions of Nintendo's hit first-party franchises like Pokemon, Mario Kart, and Super Mario 3D Land.