Gaming has been around for a long time, in fact, it’s been in the mainstream for around 30 years now. While its age pales in comparison to literature, movies, TV and theatre, it’s safe to say that gaming is around for good. Even as an established medium, there is still room for growth, though. The landscape has changed so much for gaming, even across the last decade. So where else is there to go? We’ve taken a look at some of the biggest areas of gaming and looked into what the future might hold.
Online Casinos
Maybe you don’t think of this as traditional gaming, but there is no escape from the fact casinos are a huge market for gaming. Software developers release literally hundreds of new games every month to the online casino market and it has some of the highest revenues of any aspect of the gaming industry. Online casinos have a lot of players and the players themselves have a lot of choice. So, what could be new for this area of the market?
Looking at how the market has changed over the last decade, it’s obvious what the online casino industry is aiming for – more immersion. The development of live dealer casino games has seen the brick and mortar casino come into the home for the first time ever. They have been incredibly popular and it’s actually seen Evolution Gaming go from a new player in the market to one of the biggest iGaming companies in the world. So, what is in the future for online casinos?
To put it simply, it looks like more of the same. Many online casino operators are looking into ways of creating a fully online virtual casino. It’s expected that this will use technology from a number of different areas of the market in order to create a seamless experience. With virtual reality tech currently showing a lot of promise for creating an immersive world, the blockchain showing the ability to house a lot of virtual real estate and the current live dealer technology in place, a highly impressive virtual casino shouldn’t be too hard to put together.
The link between the different techs isn’t quite there yet, but it’s definitely possible that within the next five years, we could see a fully virtual online casino in place. Will players migrate from brick and mortar venues to the online ones? Perhaps not fully, there are some aspects that virtual casinos will never be able to offer, such as an all you can eat buffet. For everything else though, the possibilities are almost endless.
Online Gaming
Online gaming has grown in size at an incredible rate over the last 10 years. Although it’s actually been an option for closer to three decades, it’s only really become an actual mainstream option over the last 10. Online gaming offers perhaps the greatest scope for players. It’s because of this that there are a number of different areas where future growth is possible. So, what’s on the cards for online gaming?
To put it simply, greater amounts of cross-platform play is one of the first things that companies will be looking into. Giving players the ability to enjoy online play against their friends, no matter what platform is being used, is something that is likely to appear in the future. It’s already available for some games, but it’s not available completely across the board yet. This might seem like a small thing, but once it is available to everyone on every game, it will cause a big shift in online play.
The second aspect is perhaps the biggest one that there is. E-sports. This is something that has grown at an incredibly fast rate over the last 3 or 4 years. The interest in e-sports, as well as improved sponsorships, has meant the growth has been amazing. While it’s unlikely that e-sports will ever overtake the popularity of traditional sports, there is a good chance that it will become significantly more mainstream. You can expect developers to put a lot more time into creating titles that translate well to e-sports as well as promoting their own tournaments as a vehicle to drive publicity. There’s no doubting that e-sports are currently one of the most important aspects of online gaming.
Another aspect that will likely be focused on is innovation within online games. Seeing the popularity of titles such as Among Us and Fall Guys means that developers realise that players don’t just want FPS and sports titles to play online. Even Fortnite approached the online shooter genre from a slightly different angle, which is what helped it to be so popular.
Who knows what the future holds in terms of innovation? If we knew that, then we would be able to sell the ideas and retire on the huge payments they would earn. All we can say is look out for the next innovative and fun series of online games because there’s no doubt that they will be on the way.
Cloud Computing
It’s already here, we know this. It’s not a mainstream offering yet, though. Microsoft is offering some cloud computing options to Game Pass players, but on the whole, it’s not quite managed to become massively popular yet. However, it does have a lot of potential.
The main area that cloud computing will promote change in the future is the lack of need for a console or system to play games on. Cloud computing means that as long as you have a device that has a screen and a browser, you can theoretically play games on anything. No more having to spend a huge amount on the latest console or a top class gaming rig. You can just pay the monthly subscription fee and play whatever you want, whenever you want. This is one change that you won’t have to wait long to see.
While many of the other changes might take some time to become the norm, cloud gaming is certainly likely to be the main way gamers play within the next five years. Will there be another generation of consoles? If Microsoft gets its way, there probably won’t be, but it could be one of the many interesting changes to gaming that will see the sector continue to evolve.
This is a paid guest post.
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