Gaming has been one of the industries that have thrived so well when the pandemic began last year. Despite the challenges, plenty of games were still released including The Last of Us Part Two, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Cyberpunk.
In 2019, the global gaming industry was estimated to be worth over 151 billion US dollars, and based on how it is performing worldwide, it will be valued at over 256 billion US dollars by 2025. It has a CAGR of 9.17 percent from 2020 to 2025. With that, the next few years will be interesting for gaming businesses.
Countries like the USA, China, Japan, South Korea, and Germany are some of the places where the gaming sector is huge. However, it’s not too far from now that India will also be part of the list as gaming is also gaining more interest in the country. Mobile gaming including the download of online casino apps in India for real money games has significantly grown in the last year.
With that, we can only expect that 2021 will be quite a year for both gaming companies and gamers. Here are the trends that we may see more of in the gaming scene this year.
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Mobile Gaming
The mobile market is bigger than ever with around 4 billion smartphone users worldwide. It is estimated that over 2 billion of these mobile users are already using their devices for gaming. In China alone, there were more than 620 million mobile gamers in 2019.
The lockdowns have somehow boosted the mobile gaming segment last year with more people trying to find different ways to entertain themselves in their homes. India, in particular, has seen over 50 percent growth in mobile gaming.
It is expected that mobile gaming will only get nigger not only in India but other countries too this year due to multiple reasons. One is the fact that smartphones are becoming more affordable and powerful. More and more people are now preferring smartphones with gaming chipsets and these devices don’t necessarily have to be expensive anymore.
What would also help boost the growth of mobile tech is the availability of a 5G connection. 5G has been available to select locations in 2018. Since then, more places and countries have started to get ready to make this more available. This year, we will surely see more places that have a 5G connection. This will only make gaming a better experience for many users.
Online Gambling
Last year has also been a good year for online gambling. Many land casinos and bookies were forced to temporarily close because of the lockdowns. Because of that, people turned to online gambling instead. The lack of sports events when the pandemic started is also connected to the growth of online casino gaming as sports betting wasn’t as lively as it was pre-pandemic.
This year, we may see more online casinos pop out as more states in the US and countries start to legalize their local operations. However, the majority of countries without legal online casinos aren’t too strict when it comes to allowing offshore casinos to offer their services to the locals. With that, it will be easy for many people around the world to enjoy casino games online.
Since mobile gaming is becoming more popular, we may also see more gambling companies release their apps. This is especially now that Google will finally allow gambling apps in more than fifteen countries including the US, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The new set of Google regulations will take effect on March 31.
Non-Gaming Streams
Over the last few years, we’ve seen many streamers pop out of different streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook Gaming. We will see more of this in 2021. There is, however, a new trend in streaming, nowadays.
On Twitch, it was found that viewers are becoming more interested in the “just chatting” segment that streamers have. This is when gamers don’t play any games. They only talk about certain topics and to their followers without playing any game.
On YouTube, this is also becoming trending content for popular streamers like PewDiePie and JackScepticEye. Both have their content on memes commentary and according to some of their fans, they now prefer such content from their favorites instead of watching them play video games.
Conclusion
Overall, 2021 is already poised to be a better year for the gaming industry. There still may be challenges in the development of new gaming consoles due to the pandemic restrictions. However, since the mobile sector is becoming more prominent, gaming companies should still be able to meet the demands of gamers worldwide.
