Each decade has seen significant advancements in video gaming, but anything so far is a blip in comparison to what’s coming in the next few years.
We expect that the gaming business will undergo a complete transition starting in 2021 due to six convergent developments that will generate an influx in sales opportunities for both game creators and advertisers.
The rise of 5G
The seemingly insignificant single-digit name shift from 4G to 5G would not do justice to the next generation of wireless data capabilities. So how does this affect gamers? Latency has long been a constraint on mobile gamers and is about ten milliseconds on 4G technology. It does not sound like anything to the casual observer, but it is a lifetime in the world of professional gaming.
5G would reduce latency to less than 1ms, enabling new possibilities. Developers have already begun to explore the waters of broadband, cross-platform play with games like PUBG Mobile and Fortnite Mobile, but 5G would unleash a storm of new possibilities.
As global 5G deployment becomes widespread after 2021, mobile gaming can see much more significant development than it has already seen. In the past 40 years, about 1.5 billion video game consoles have been released. However, over 2.2 billion users have used their smartphones to play games in the last decade. 5G can only boost the amount by enhancing the mobile gaming experience significantly.
Proliferation in augmented and virtual reality
Mobile gaming is not the only gaming frontier changing. Since the inception, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) gaming have advanced at a breakneck pace, redefining the word “immersive gaming experience.”
Millennials in major markets
Much like the way we play video games is changing, the people who play them are changing. The days of video games being sold to skateboarding young boys with backward-facing hats are long gone.
Women also account for 45 percent of gamers in the United States. A gamer’s average age is 34. Additionally, the typical household contains two gamers.
In 2016, millennials surpass Baby Boomers as the biggest group. They will reach their highest buying power and become the primary gaming population by 2021.
Streaming and spectatorship
If you believe that seeing other people play video games is dull, you are mistaken. On the contrary, as a competitive activity, gaming has become a common form of entertainment. For 15 years, video entertainment platforms have been implanting, and the convergence of social networking, streaming sites, and fantastic sporting titles has accelerated the global expansion of eSports and streaming.
Although the player population has grown at an annual pace of 10% on average since 2015, the spectator base has nearly doubled! As a result, eSports produced $655 million in sales in 2017. By 2021, the figure is expected to be closer to $1.6 billion.
The transition from analog to digital games
Solitaire was originally an analog game that has been adapted to a modern format which is available in various formats such as Klondike Solitaire. In addition, numerous outdoor and indoor sports have been transformed into computer games in the past. This change is gaining momentum and will peak in 2021 when most analog games are migrated to digital.
Gamification: Blurring the line between entertainment and shopping
Not only gaming developers are selling premium play and interactive items for real-world dollars, but with brick-and-mortar retailers under intense pressure to re-engage consumers, analysts are suggesting engaging, game-like opportunities to entice shoppers back into malls.
Story by Arcadia
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