Gaming At the End of 2017

2017 was a great year for videogames. Aside from the series of massive publishers releasing massive titles on all platforms imaginable, we've seen myriads of smaller, independent studios add their own two cents to the glorious mess we know as the video games industry. According to a Newzoo report, the global gaming business has reached a value of almost $109 billion, continuing its growth compared to the previous year - but the forces within it have shifted a bit once again, away from "traditional" forms of playing games toward smartphones and tablets.

What's in a name

Newzoo reports one important change of paradigm in the gaming world: the term "gamers" becoming obsolete. After all, you can't call yourself a "gamer" in the classic sense of the world if you merely play your favourite online casino games anytime, anywhere from All Jackpots on your smartphone. The new term the analysts use is "game enthusiast", and it does describe the state of gaming today better.

Interaction at its best

On the "business" side, Newzoo notes that game companies are turning into "global entertainment companies" shifting their place in the massive entertainment industry. They are different from "traditional" companies as they rely on direct consumer spending - a lot like online streaming services - rather than advertising, the model traditional entertainment businesses have made their own in the last decades. Interaction is becoming a truly attractive feature for media consumers, and gaming companies are in the perfect place to offer this increased interaction through different channels and turn all of them into profitable endeavours.

Mobile anew?

A decade has passed since Apple revealed its innovative and - let's face it - revolutionary take on the mobile phone. In the ten years that have passed, the smartphone has become the gadget with possibly the shortest replacement cycle of them all - considering the speed at which the smartphone hardware has evolved, this is not a surprise. But the lifespan of devices - especially those at the high end - has grown considerably in the last couple of years, hurting the sales of even the biggest manufacturers. This doesn't mean that the smartphone market is slowing down, though. Manufacturers are breaking into new markets - Chinese smartphone makers have, for example, "attacked" markets like India, with a massive potential for growth. This means more smartphone "game enthusiasts" are added to the pool of more than 3 billion each day. And this translates into more revenues for mobile game publishers. But innovation in the world of smartphones is showing signs of slowing down. Smartphones are already as powerful and fast as a pocket-sized supercomputer can be - who would want a new one with two more processor cores, slightly better response times, and a few extra frames per second when the already existing handset is still good for a couple of years? This has caused the replacement cycle of the smartphones to slow down. Now, new features are expected to appear - flexible screens and AR will become the new norm - and new games, too, that make use of these technologies.

The inevitable fall of single-player games

While this doesn't seem to be the case right now - after all, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was one of the best-selling games in 2017 - single-player games are on their way out today. The fact that Unreal Tournament has been revived and Quake, id Software's originally single-player series was reborn as an online multiplayer title - Quake Champions - indicates that free-to-play online competitive games are gaining in popularity super fast, replacing the major single-player titles in the list of gamers' preferences.

The global games market in 2017

While there is no definitive information available about the state of the global games market just yet but the data available so far shows the demise of "classic" gaming platforms like consoles and PC and the rise of mobile as the new most profitable branch of the gaming industry. Smartphone and tablet games together had estimated revenues of more than $45 billion in 2017, more than 40% of the whole industry's revenues. And its revenue share is expected to grow further in the coming years, reaching a market share of 50% by 2020.