Direction of the gaming industry // Blockchain, Mobile, VR
I wouldnt necessarily call myself a gamer, as I am out of my twenties and I never considered that a legit lifestyle. But I do play video games from time to time. Mostly grand strategies like Europa Universalis 4, HOMM, League Of Legends, some World of Warcraft, every few years, a bit of VR, etc.
I have always considered gaming as peak entertainment and art.
- Reading books requires you to visualize and is not interactive.
- Watching films and TV removes the requirement for the visualization part, but the interactivity is still lacking.
- Traditional console and PC gaming allows you not only to visualize the story but also experience it as a protagonist taking the story to its conclusion, yourself.
VR is the natural next step from there.
So I often do follow some trends and try to keep up with the industry.
There are a few trends I have noticed and I feel #hive is well placed right now to be a serious player in the industry with games like @splinterlands, @ragnarok.game and others that will be coming soon.
VR gaming:
I wanted to touch a bit upon VR as that is the new player in the traditional console industry. Facebook (Meta), in 2014 bought the Oculus startup for 2 billion USD and dumped many more billions into the development.
VR has never really taken off due to lack of must have apps and consistency of AAA games.
Ive spent a number of hours in VR and tried out most "must have" games and apps. Besides Half Life:Alyx by Valve most of the games were closer to tech demos than full fledged games.
But VR has something no other gaming platform does. It has an unlimited future potential.
The problems its facing is the cost and technology simply being unable to follow the rate of the development.
VR gaming hit 1.4 Billion USD in 2021 and accounts for less than 1% of gaming revenue.
Mobile gaming:
Mobile gaming has been set aside by hardcore gamers for years. Ridiculed, mocked and memed on.
The unfortunate truth is that mobile gaming is the KING.
And that is for a very simple reason. According to some numbers 90% of the human population owns a smartphone. Very few people own a state of the art gaming PC that can run new AAA games.
That simple fact makes mobile gaming the biggest revenue earner in the gaming industry.
Hardcore gamers always existed, its mobile that turned the industry on its head by introducing gaming to the casuals.
Here is a nice visualization showing the explosion of mobile gaming in the past decades.
Mobile gaming really killed handheld devices. ☠️
More than 50% of gaming revenue is collected by mobile game companies. In 2020 that number was 85 Billion USD. In 2022 it will probably come closer to 100 billion.
Mobile gaming is not going anywhere and should be on top for at least a few decades.
Blockchain gaming:
When it comes to blockchain gaming revenue numbers are hard to determine due to the token price fluctuations. Blockchain gaming is an entirely different beast than all the other gaming platforms.
Whats revolutionary about it is the complete shift in philosophy where the user/player can have direct access to the revenue potential and growth potential of the game.
The primary requirement for a successful blockchain game is a solid ingame economy which is hard to accomplish but once that requirement is fulfilled the longevity of the game is assured.
In an industry where game attention in 99% of cases peaks for a week or two, blockchain games, by rewarding participation can extend that indefinitely.
Participation in company success used to be reserved for investors and stock holders that had no contact with the product itself, blockchain changes that by allowing those that actually use the product to benefit most from it.
Im extremely bullish on crypto gaming and I think for good reason.
I could have covered a few more topics but decided to keep it shorter.
The point here is that the established market leaders arent going anywhere for a long time but there is quite a bit of space for new ideas to flourish. Looking forward to the next decade.
