Trends in the Gaming Industry

Top 5 trends in gaming at the moment

·        Live gaming broadcasts

Live gaming online broadcasts have been growing quite fast in the past couple of years. Websites like Twitch.tv, YouTube.com (although it’s not known for being a website where you can live broadcast, but it’s relatable to this topic nonetheless), - as well as minor ones such as Azubu.tv and also MLG.tv – are online venues for a huge video-game fan base. Twitch for example, is a live-streaming website, where you can broadcast almost anything you want – video-games, music, creative stuff like painting or designing a character and even just chatting about general things. You can also interact with the audience in the chat, with various, free and paid emoticons, and finally you can directly support the streamer by donating money or subscribing to their channel. These websites are now starting to be considered as potential careers. Because the gaming world is growing so fast and so is the audience for video-games, everyone wants to watch their favourite YouTubers/streamers shenanigans – and they are quickly becoming celebrities. Live gaming broadcasts are becoming big in the industry because it’s never really been seen in the past few years – it’s something original, and everyone seems to love it. For example, the most well know YouTubers can reach over 1 million, or even 2 million views per video, - and even more, if the video actually becomes viral - and the biggest streamers can get from 15 thousand live viewers, to 40 thousand and beyond. There's a lot of money involved in this trend: For example, live streamers and YouTubers, especially live streamers need exceptional good computers and a good internet connection, as well as other minor things which combined with the full setup can cost anywhere from £800 to (if you want the best of the best) £7000. This might seem like a lot of money, but it's not that much compared to what these people can actually make out of their job. "Sodapoppin", aka Chance Morris who is one of the most popular video-game streamers on Twitch, streams 10 hours a day to around 20K viewers, 8K subscribers and gets around 500 $5 minimum daily donations. It's estimated that he makes around $250K to $350K a year (excluding taxes I believe?). Although he's one of the biggest streamers, regular streamers can make enough to live of Twitch. Not to mention YouTubers, who can make millions. Also there are a lot of sponsors and partnerships involved, "million dollar deals", etc. Basically live streaming and YouTube has a lot more to it than just video-games.

·        F2P (Free to Play)

Free games. Not much to say about this, everyone loves free things. Open Source gaming has a huge community - for obvious reasons - and it’s growing every day. Plus, gaming is evolving, which means that games will only get better, and so are these free games, and so is the audience for free games. A lot of people say that games should be cheap to buy and cheap to play. Free to Play games take it to the next level. Even though some of the people who make free games are only trying to get noticed by bigger companies, there are people who make free games for the sake of it - so that the audience can freely enjoy their free entertainment. The main reason why free to play games are successful right now, it's because if people want to test it out, they can just do it, because they don't have to pay for it, and some of these games are actually worth a try - if people try it, like it and get addicted to it, you can be 100% sure that game will be successful. And another thing is, if you try out a free to play game and you didn't necessarily enjoy it, the only thing you lost was time - another advantage towards paid games. Examples of successful Free to Play games are: League of Legends, the most played game at the moment, with the biggest competitive scene and the largest community of players; Team Fortress 2, huge FPS game by Valve that became popular because of its originality; and many more: DOTA 2, Smite, Hearthstone, Tera, PlanetSide2, Warframe, etc... 

·        E-sports

“The most recent League of Legends World Championship tournament in Seoul, South Korea, (at the time, it was in 2012 I think) boasted 40,000 attendees, and 32 million people watching the 2 day event online. That’s just as many viewers as for the Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony.” Even though it is severely criticized - for example, parents don't understand that kids and a lot of people watch other people play video games -, facts cannot be ignored. E-sports are quickly reaching the level of “real” sports, and that's even if they're not already there. It is said that e-sports will reach NFL's (National Football League) level within 1 or 2 years. Now, NFL is one of the biggest sports league out there, and in only 3/4 years, e-sports have already gotten to the level they are right now, having a bigger audience than NHL (National Hockey League) and now, they will potentially be overcoming NFL. It's without a doubt that E-sports are ballin' outta control right now, and this is apparently only the beginning... Everyone says that e-sports will rise to the top. Last year, League of Legends' World Championship, which is the biggest e-sport tournament (has a $1 million prize for the team who wins the tournament), gathered dozens of millions of total views. It won't take long until e-sports reaches the level of Super Bowl. Financial wise, e-sports is getting richer every day. The majority of games in e-sports consist of 5 players vs another 5 players; so there are a lot of teams in e-sports, and each team, obviously just like in sports, they need money to keep it going. E-sports hasn't really reached the level of sports, where there are transfers of players to other teams for money, although, that is becoming a thing now. Negotiations of players between teams are becoming a thing in e-sports. Not to mention that all the teams have sponsors of all types - even food companies.
So in conclusion, the audience is already huge, the financial power is growing and therefore E-sports are becoming the new sports.

·        Online game updates

Updating a game online. Nowadays, the majority of games (especially online games, such as League of Legends and Counter-Strike GO) are constantly being updated. Either game changes or bug fixes, even DLC, users can update their games by downloading the patches online. In the past, you used to buy a game (physically, as a CD) and just play it (if we want to go way back, where online gaming wasn't a thing, you would just buy the game and play it offline, and that would be the final version of the game. If the game had game-breaking glitches, there was really nothing that could be done about it.). Now, you can either buy a game online or in a store, and you can keep updating it as the developers release new patches. Even if it's not an online game, it can still be updated, and DLC can also be released. This is a huge thing in the gaming industry. Everyone accepted cloud gaming and it's seen in every game. Nowadays, if any game was released like the old-school way, not being updated at all, and being played in the same "patch" it was released at first, the game would either have to be a huge title already or it simply wouldn't be successful at all. DLC can also bring profit to the company - for example, Call of Duty DLCs all cost money. You cannot get the DLC if you don't pay for it. Call of Duty releases dozens of DLCs every time they make a new game, so they get millions and millions just from the DLC.

·        Online Gaming

Offline games are considered a waste of money by a lot of people. I can see why - you pay £50 for a game, you complete it and then you stop playing it, because there's nothing else to do on it. This doesn't happen with online games, since there's always content. Online games are the most played ones, and the most watched because they keep being updated and therefore there’s always something new in online games from time to time. The games keep changing which makes you wanna play more. In online games, you normally play against other players, which is what makes it fun. I remember when i personally played my first online game, which was Counter Strike 1.6, i was so excited, not because I was playing a video game, but because I was playing it with other people in the internet that I didn't know they even existed!! Online game are way more competitive compared to offline games for the same reason - you play against people with either a lower level of skill, same level or higher level which makes it super interesting. Also online games don't get boring as fast for the same reasons and also because in games like Counter-Strike or any other big online games, (especially MMORPGs, where there's always something to do) you can't really complete the game, and if you think about it, online games are like arcade games, there's always content. Another reason why online games are huge right now, it's because you can play with your friends, and also make new ones. You can co-op or play against them. In the Financial side of things, online games nowadays, and in the future will always overcome offline games. This is because most online games have a pay-to-win system (not necessarily pay-to-win, but surely 99% of online games have an option where you can spend real money to "support" the game makers), where you can buy things for real money that will give you an advantage or benefit you. The game makers get a lot of money from this system. Not to mention DLCs too. For example, if we look at MMORPGs, the majority of them has a pay-to-win system, like an item store, where you can buy better items to make your character stronger, and the only way to get these items is actually to pay real money for them. Now, if you get addicted to an MMORPG, it's almost certain that you're going to spend at the very least some of your pocket money on the item store.

Top 5 future trends in gaming

·        Online content such as in YouTube and Twitch unlikely to continue being free to watch

With the huge growth of e-sports, websites like Twitch (which already charges optional subscriptions) and YouTube (which has recently introduced YouTube Red, a subscription based entertainment platform) most likely will be fully subscription based, and become even more similar to TV. There are a lot of reasons why this is happening, but the main one is money. There is already A LOT of money involved in these websites, and their financial power is only starting to grow - they have huge potential.
Also, as we know, TV is dying. The internet is taking over all the audiences. The younger audiences, as in teenagers, pretty much don't even watch TV anymore, including me. I went from watching TV 3/4 hours a day when i was around 10 YO to not watching TV at all pretty much right now. In the future, younger audiences might not even watch TV at all, if they follow the steps of the current generation. TV might die completely. Ok, i think you got the point. Now, it's easy to understand how TV is dying and YouTube as well as live streaming is rising: Firstly, these last two have a much bigger variety of content to watch, compared to the content you are obligated to watch on TV - like, you have more options on the internet. Secondly, it's free. And last but not least, there's almost nothing that grabs the younger audience's attention on TV anymore, which doesn't happens in the internet. Back to the initial point, and taking in mind everything i just said, it's very possible, almost inevitable that the free online content that we all know and love, won't be free for much longer. Especially with E-sports growing at such a fast pace, and quickly becoming as big as sports. In conclusion, we can say that YouTube and other websites are becoming the new TV.
PS: This isn't really a trend, i know, but I thought it would be relevant to talk about, and I really wanted to mention it.

    

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·        Virtual Reality

Things like Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard and PlayStation VR have been announced and will be released in the near future, and have a huge potential to start changing the gaming industry. Everyone loves innovation, especially in gaming. The fans are always looking for something new, something revolutionary - like feeling as if you're IN the game! That's what virtual reality brings to the table. Virtual reality is something that some would have considered impossible like a decade ago, or at least unlikely or would've been invented many decades from then. It was considered a dream. - and that's why it's going to be pretty big. Some YouTubers have already tested it, and made videos on them, and people seem to love it. Everyone wants to try it out. Financial wise, VR is set to change the world of video games.“VR is happening here on a scale and with an energy you can’t believe,” he said. “The universities are pouring millions of dollars into it. I don’t think you went far enough in your article. Seriously, this is going to change everything.” - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b29a3106-9761-11e5-9228-87e603d47bdc.html#ixzz3uE9aZi38 | http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b29a3106-9761-11e5-9228-87e603d47bdc.html#axzz3uE8xruwh
VR is going to be THE next big thing in gaming.

·     Parents as gaming advocates

It’s already happening and it will grow even more. This generation's passion for gaming will pass onto the next generation - when today’s gamers grow up and have children, they will become their children’s "gaming educators" - they will get them into gaming. As you can tell, this will make the industry grow. "Through a recent survey of UK families, the channel found out that 75% of parents they surveyed now play video games with their children, and that children aged 10 or under take most of their gaming recommendations from their parents." - http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/23/16-trends-that-will-change-the-games-industry
This is also beneficial for the families: Parents and children will automatically spend more time together, strengthening the relationships between them.
The market for this topic is already here, and it will eventually grow: consoles such as Wii-U and games such as Wii Sports, as well as many others are perfect for a well spent session with the whole family. Now, it's inevitable that this market will grow - because gaming is being taught from generation to generation, that means that the industry is growing which means that more games and consoles like this will be created.











·     Cloud Gaming

The idea of providing online gameplay-ability from various devices. "In 2010, Sony purchased streaming company GaiKai, and its technology is now helping power the PlayStation 4's cloud services." - http://mashable.com/2013/06/19/gaming-tech-trends/#QWQP0SJbNOqN . Sony also said that they will eventually allow PlayStation 4 games to be played on the handheld PS Vita. It's also said that this new technology will make games look much better, decrease loading times and increase the map size. Cloud gaming is basically the next big thing for consoles. "The actual game is stored, executed, and rendered on the remote operator's or game company's server and the video results are streamed directly to a consumer's computers over the internet." Financial wise, companies have been investing a lot on cloud gaming: Sony buying the streaming company GaiKai, and other companies such as Microsoft and OnLive have also been investing for a few years.

·     Augmented reality

What is Augmented reality you may ask? Well, "Augmented reality (AR) is the integration of digital information with live video or the user's environment in real time." - http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/augmented-reality-AR
Basically, AR add new things to an existent image or picture. Why is this relevant? Because it has the potential to change gaming to a whole new level. It's just like we see in the movies, or even in our dreams - it's augmented reality."The key to augmented reality is the software. Augmented reality programs are written in special 3D augmented reality programs such as D'Fusion,  Unifye Viewer or FLARToolKit.  These programs allow the developer to tie animation or contextual digital information in the computer program to an augmented reality "marker" in the real world.". Right now, it can be used in mobile phones, but it is said that in a few years, it can move onto gaming, having the potential to create something completely different from what we've seen so far.