The trends of video game development

A reputable video game development company is obliged to follow trends. If you analyze what has happened with games over the past five to ten years, you can find transformation in key aspects.

1. Business model: a one-time transaction seeks to become a subscription service.
2. Product: content has been transformed into a social network.
3. Content: the developers have simplified everything to the user level.
4. Platform: dedicated was replaced by cross-platform and cloud storage.
5. Marketing: traditional has been replaced by social channels.

When working in the field of game dev, it is imperative to take all these factors into account.

Picture 1 of The trends of video game development

New players for new games

Not so long ago, the gaming audience could be described with the simple phrase white men. Yes, they still consider themselves the dominant category, but the reality looks different. Today, the video game industry has diversified so much that the proportion of women who play is almost equal (48% versus 50%).

Yes, the game selection still varies. Women rarely consider themselves to be gamers. But they willingly leave their money in simple mobile toys. In such a popular genre of social casino, there has been an all-out classroom dominated by older white women.

Indirect trends and audiences are dramatically changing game audiences. Take, for example, the gamification of processes around us. Games are new marketing, not a haven for addicts. A pretty picture offers another format for interacting with games when they are simply not being played. The player base has grown at an average rate of 10% per year since 2015, and the viewer base has doubled over that time.

Forecasts for the future

The player engagement rate doubles every five years. Other metrics are also growing. It is predicted that by 2022:

1. The audience will be 3 billion players.
2. Annual spending of users on games will exceed $ 195 billion.
3. Average weekly play time will reach five hours.

More general trends:

1. Aging (maturing) audience of games: they just grow up, but still play.
2. Play without playing. In games like Fortnite, Discord, you can just watch the process, move in the playing field, but not take any action.

More than games

Fortnite has a lot in common with Facebook. Millions of players around the world communicate in chat rooms often with no goal to win. Take a look at the rise of Discord. For many, the gameplay itself has become secondary to the get-together. Even without playing actively, users communicate, interact and observe others. Games are not only played now, but they are actively looking at how others are playing.

The next trend is a theme park or a line of toys. Players spend thousands of hours interacting with game stories and characters. As a result, many developers are moving from a publisher-led funding model to a venture capital model that allows them to retain ownership.

Mobile games

Mobile platforms have become not just a catalyst, but a powerful engine of change in the gaming industry. It suddenly turned out that hundreds of millions of people always have a gaming device at their fingertips. Therefore, the following trends have emerged:

1. The arrival of large game titles in mobile.
2. Entering the gaming market of players from related areas is the consolidation of the market.
3. Blurring the boundaries between platforms.

Subscription dominates the market

It is that the revolutionary process does not take place in hardware, but in distribution, where everyone is talking about subscription and the cloud. Clouds are not only about cloud gaming, they are also about the ownership model in which you, as a player, have nothing. You buy a subscription and are constantly online.

Conclusions:

Trends affect not only players but developers as well. With the growing importance of design, companies began to attract more professional artists. Simple shooters are of little interest to users, they need complex strategies. Professional screenwriters are hired to develop them. The highest-grossing games not only draw characters, but also film real actors. The studio won't survive without a few cool designers who can create a user-friendly yet mesmerizing game interface. It is important to have a competent marketer in your team who can assess trends and guess what the future holds for the industry. It is on the shoulders of marketers that the task of predicting demand falls. The company must release a product that has every chance of becoming successful in the future.

Jessica Tanner

Update 18 February 2021