Having been on an impressive run in the recent decade, video games grew in a multi-billion dollars industry. In 2020, the global gaming market revenue reached an unimaginable $174.9 billion with mobile games accounting for $86.3 billion, console games – $51.2 billion, and PC games – $37.4 billion.
It goes without saying that along with the shift towards the games with a user-friendly, flexible, device-agnostic environment, the underlying components of those games change as well. From the first simple tennis video game in 1958 to Red Dead Redemption 2 of today, the game design has improved so dramatically that it seems almost impossible to keep up with it. Now you need to be aware of how to get your Tft boost and along with the latest trends in the use of NFT.
But we'll try. Without further ado, let's jump on the gaming design trends that will rock the industry in the new decade.
Gambling While Gaming
Gaming has long been incorporating gambling elements – loot boxes, social casino games, slot-machine-like games, etc. – and the interconnection will become stronger as both industries progress. Even now, you don't necessarily have to sign up for Casinia or a classy casino alike to experience the best of what the gambling world can offer – you can just launch one of the gambling-powered games and enjoy the vibe there.
Speaking of the video games with gambling elements, Final Fantasy VIII, Red Dead Redemption, The Witcher 3, Watch Dogs, and Fallout New Vegas are the top-5 to try. From a ‘Gwent' card game in The Witcher 3 to poker in Watch Dogs, each of the titles features a different gambling game, giving you more than enough room for choice.
Using Cloud Technologies to Play any Games from Any Device
Cloud gaming libraries store the demanding games and video stream them to your device so that you can enjoy the process instantly without the need to download the game or use a high-power device to run it. As of now, cloud gaming is in its infancy, but it has already doubled in its value from $0.63 billion in 2020 to $1.45 billion in 2021.
And, of course, the best is yet to come. Not only will cloud gaming connect millions of players to the games they couldn't play before due to technical limitations, but it will also allow us to create new virtual worlds of unprecedented quality, almost indistinguishable from reality. Cloud gaming is developed by G-Cluster, Nvidia, Onlive, StreamMyGame, and a few other companies, and 5G greatly contributes to it as the only thing needed on the user's side is a fast and stable internet connection.
Feeling, Smelling, Tasting, and Controlling the Virtual Worlds
Contrary to the notorious “we don’t need no thought control” line in the Pink Floyd famous lyrics, soon we will be able to thought-control the actions on the screen. This will become possible – and is already possible to some extent: you can control software (for example, drones) by the signals from your brain through Emotiv EPOC– due to the development of neurocomputer interfaces.
Control, though, is only a part of the Internet of Senses. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (remember Pokemon Go? the game had over a billion downloads by 2019) are still new, but they already allow us to taste, smell, and touch the virtual universe.
What's more, the language barrier might soon fall as automatic translation software is about to reach a stage at which it can instantly translate between any languages with very few mistakes.
Watching eSports Just like Classic Sports
By 2023, eSports is expected to attract over 350 million occasional viewers and 300 million frequent viewers, the numbers that make the traditional sports fans shiver. Salaries and prize pools rise as well. For example, the cumulative prize pool for the Fortnite tournament in 2019 was around $65 million, and the global prize pool in eSports is projected to cross $500 million by 2023.
Video streaming shows just as remarkable rise. In Q1 2021, video games were watched for 8.8 billion hours around the world, the number more than doubled from 3.6 billion hours in 2019. And it's easy to explain: first of all, video streaming is all-encompassing, from broadcasting tournaments to daily practice to games against fans; secondly, it's a way to stay in touch with the game for those who can't play themselves; finally, it's free but with lots of ways to interact with the streamer, players, and fellow watchers.
