USA - In line with the digital age, the online casino and gaming industry has grown exponentially in recent years and continues to do so. In a 2018 Global Games Market Report, it is stated that by the end of that year, over 2 billion online gamers would have spent about $137 billion on online games. This reflects an increase of over $16 billion from the previous year. And it looks like the growth isn’t stopping anytime soon.
In a report from TechCrunch, “2019 promises to be a great year for gaming.” Additionally, Morgan Stanley has released a forecast stating that the gaming industry is likely to reach $138 billion at the start of this year. There are also six new trends that are expected to emerge this year and have a significant impact on the gaming industry for the long term.
Mobile Gaming
Within the past ten years, mobile gaming have gone from the smallest segment of the gaming industry to the largest. Industry experts expect this segment to be worth almost $100 billion by the year 2021. What’s interesting is that most popular mobile games are free to download. These games follow a point system, where players are rewarded with things like character upgrades or moving to a higher level when they earn a specific number of points.
Game developers earn from these games by offering a paid option for those who could not reach the required number of points. This trend has proven to game developers that mobile gaming is definitely the way to go, and that there are some serious revenues to be had from online gaming, even when they don’t charge for the app download.
Cloud Gaming
Cloud gaming is seen to be the new frontier of online gaming. As such, it cold possibly bring some unlikely partnerships into fruition, and gaming companies might come to view it as a pivotal investment. Huge companies like Microsoft and Google are also expected to capitalize on the rise of cloud gaming and lay claim to the consumer market. In fact, Google has recently announced that they are working on a cloud gaming platform called Stadia.
There is no stopping cloud gaming from going mainstream. The only question left is how soon that will happen. After all, it offers a market opportunity that goes way beyond interactive entertainment. Microsoft is already earning significant revenue from a variety of cloud-based services. It only makes sense for them to bring their technology to the gaming industry.
One partnership that seemed unlikely just a couple of years ago, but is now poised to come to fruition is that of Google and Tencent. These two major players are now working together in China, and if all goes well, Tencent will finally have an entry point into a market that was previously unattainable for them. In the meantime, long-time industry players like Sony and Nintendo will have to make the decision of whether to meet the challenges of growth on their own, or find someone to buddy up with.
The expected growth of the casino and gaming industry is such that stakeholders have started looking into the possibility of unionizing. The Game Developers Conference even conducted a survey of almost 4,000 game developers, and it was discovered that almost half of them think unionizing is a good idea.
The casino and gaming industry is definitely preparing for a big year. Even now, there are already several innovations and inventions taking place. And more are expected to come.
