To say that gaming industry is a tumultuous one would be an understatement. New breakthroughs in the field of technology and electronics are occurring more frequently than ever before. The gaming industry gets directly or sometimes indirectly influenced by these changes. What was considering cutting edge gaming technology a couple of years ago is now considered run of the mill and thing of the past. The same logic extends to gaming trends.
Here’s a look at the top gaming trends that emerged in 2018:
E-sports gaining momentum & popularity
E-sports in a nutshell are organized competitions and tournaments where gamers compete against each other individually or as a part of a team. E-sports have recently gotten a lot of coverage in mainstream media with huge prize money up for grabs by the winner. The popularity of E-sports events are now almost on par with regular physical sports. Realizing the growing potential of this budding industry, governments of various countries have started to invest in erecting infrastructure dedicated to hosting E-sports. It’s estimated that E-sports market could be exceed 1 billion dollars in market value by 2020.
Battle royale games
Epic games Fortnite has set a precedent for all battle royale style games. It has been immensely popular and has minted a lot of cash for the developers. The trend has now gone viral with game developing companies all scrambling to include a battle royale mode. Even mobile gaming isn’t immune to the effects of this trend with games like Player’s Unknown battle ground or PUBG for short garnering overwhelming response and praise. Suffice to say battle royale gaming trend is going to be in fashion for quite some time to come.
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) becoming mainstream
Virtual Reality and its variant augment reality although are in their nascent stages but their potential for gaming is huge and undeniable. Game developing companies have managed to mix together elements from both AR and VR to provide unique interaction and interface to their games. Prime example of such game are Pokemon GO and Star War Trials. Another trend that has matured during 2018 is voice recognition capabilities. For gamers who prefer to go controller free, this is an answer to a prayer! Siri on iOS is the earliest example of this technology. Taking different voice commands from users and processing them is a revolutionary step which might pale in comparison to AR and VR but nevertheless accessing your social media feed, navigating the web etc is still highly impressive stuff.
Motion sensing video games
Last but certainly not least, motion sensing video games are negating the age old mantra that video games make a person lazy. Xbox Kinect, Sony’s Move and Nintendo’s wii all have the capability to capture gamer’s physical movement and then replicate them inside a game. Games such as Xbox’s Kinect sports, Sony Move’s Sports Champions have been around for quite some time now but have recently gone through a revival phase with fine tweaking making their motion capturing horizon broader and more sophisticated.