With the third decade of the millennium under way, there is no shortage of expert commentators telling us that this is the age of one thing or another. One of the more common assertions that you will hear in the tech sector is that everyone is a gamer these days.
It might sound like hyperbole, generated by screaming headlines taken out of context about gaming being bigger than movies and music combined. However, there is solid data to indicate that on this occasion, the claims might just be true. Market research by Newzoo indicates that around 2.4 billion people play mobile games. That’s a third of the global population.
The same report shows that mobile is now comfortably the most popular platform for gaming, with revenue approaching that of PC and consoles combined. Regardless of whether this really is the “age of gaming,” it’s clearly a sector that can’t be ignored. Here, we take a look at some of the factors and trends that will dominate the next 12 months.
Better social interaction with 5G
With even average smartphones possessing processing power to equal many laptops, mobile games can now be as rich and immersive as those on any other platform. But the real enjoyment factor of gaming is in sharing the experience with others. The reduced latency that 5G promises will be able to take social gaming to a new level. We are already seeing a flavor of this in the casino sector, where industry leaders like Betsson offer live gaming experiences where you can interact with a real dealer and other players. 5G will provide even more opportunities, for example in mobile sports games where players thousands of miles apart can play against one another as if they were in the same room playing on a console.
More possibilities through cloud gaming
The fact that both Microsoft and Google invested heavily in cloud gaming platforms in 2019 should tell you everything you need to know here. 5G will also be instrumental in driving advances in cloud gaming, and industry analysts from ironSource predict that it will lead to still more accessibility for even the most casual gamer.
And all for free
One thing that is not expected to change is that we will still, by and large, be resistant to paying for our gaming experiences. Again, we can look at the cloud platforms provided by Google, Microsoft and Apple for hints. They all offer a monthly subscription service, but this is marketed squarely at the “hardcore” gamers. For most of us, five seconds of our lives spent watching a pre-game ad is all we are prepared to spend.
Mobile eSport will come of age
The eSport market is growing as quickly as any gaming genre, and is starting to attract mass appeal thanks to promotion and TV coverage. Till now, mobile eSport has been treated as something of a step down, but given the overall shape and growth of the market, this is a trend that will reverse over the coming year and into 2021. Expect to see mobile tournaments attracting billing, sponsorship and participation that will see them match, and ultimately surpass, what we now see as “conventional” eSport.
