If you’ve spent a significant chunk of your time and money on games during the pandemic, we’re not judging. They guaranteed fun, company, and even virtual concerts and gatherings that we sorely needed. The good news is that perhaps the past year accelerated the progress of the whole industry. Clearly, emerging tech trends are already turning gaming into an even more fun, immersive, interactive experience. So let the games begin!
Connecting real and virtual
Mixed reality (MR) is merging the real world with the virtual. As Intel put it: you could play a VR game and smack a character with your real-world water bottle. Fun, right?!
When Microsoft announced their Microsoft Mesh, a mixed reality platform that transports people to a whole new world, gamers could imagine a couple of places where they’d like to venture. Remember how we were all chasing Pokémon and happily walked 20 km daily? Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go, announced a collaboration with Microsoft Mesh, and the cute little monsters could become practically huggable. Well, perhaps not Gyarados.
MR is a tech trend that will make gaming feel very life-like. The DeanBeat predictions for gaming 2021 notes that “we desperately need a metaverse to escape the Zoomverse” during this pandemic, and can we get an amen? Be it Pokémon, Minecraft, your favorite epic first-person shooter, or Hogwarts – let’s just go!
The promise of NFTs
NFTs are everywhere, and people spend millions on owning crypto cats, memes, and (pseudo) art. The amounts paid are getting kind of ridiculous, but it sure seems like NFTs are here to stay one way or another. And if there could only be one industry where they make perfect sense, it may very well be gaming.
Think about this: when you play games, how efficient are those sneaky micro-transactions sucking the money out of your wallet? But when you invest in whatever helps you crush all the candies or get a giant farm, the money is gone. That joy is fleeting; the object you bought was used and is no longer yours. The dopamine high subsides; you’re mad at yourself, maybe so mad that you delete the game altogether.
During the pandemic, many of us have “moved” to the virtual world. It’s possibly a bit more sophisticated than one of the colorful candies that demand to be crushed. And if the NFT craze is about owning rare objects in the digital world – can you smell the enormousness of potential?
Playing as an investment
Blockchain can completely transform gaming. Players will have a sense of ownership when they buy objects with a real-world value. Thanks to NFTs, they can play, and then trade or sell. That essentially creates a whole new “economy” with ever-changing value based on the demand. Those who play their cards well could do what NFT collectors do. Invest, and sell at the right time at a profit. All they need to determine is which objects are worth it in the long run.
Also, let’s not forget about the very human craving to show off. Thanks to NFTs, you could even hang around in the world wearing designer clothes. “You can snap a photo of yourself wearing your Atari-branded NFTs. You’ll also be able to wear them in video games,” explained Bryana Kortendick, Enjin’s VP of operations and communications for TechCrunch.
All in all, NFTs seem like one of the tech trends that will completely shake up the gaming market. “If you can play for something that is valuable to you, then why would you choose to play in a game where there is no value,” Yat Siu, the chairman of Animoca Brands, said for VentureBeat. “We are not saying traditional games will go away. But we do believe in this thesis that it’s better for the player to play in an environment when you have some ownership.”
Streamers united
The modern-day era sure has its perks. You can make a decent salary letting people stare at you while you play your favorite game. How cool is that? Creator economy blurs the line between hobbies and jobs. It also offers the comfort and fun of communities built around individual creators. To be honest, if we talked about modern-day era downsides, lack of communities would be high on that list.
Even if you’re not a gamer, this talk from Emmett Shear, Twitch co-founder, makes you wonder if you’re not missing out on a fun experience.
“Games are like a shared campfire. They’re both interactive and connecting. Now, these campfires may have beautiful animations, heroic quests, occasionally too many loot boxes, but games today are very different than the solitary activity of 20 years ago. They’re deeply complex, they’re more intellectually stimulating, and most of all, they’re intrinsically social,” he said. As he explained, the reason why streaming is gaining popularity is quite simple. If there is an activity you already enjoy, chances are you will love watching a pro with exceptional skills. And if you have an option to interact with the streamer? Another level of fun.
“At Twitch, we’ve started calling this, as a result, “multiplayer entertainment.” Because going from watching a video alone to watching a live interactive stream is similar to the difference between going from playing a single-player game to playing a multiplayer game,” Shear said.
This was back in 2019, in the pre-pandemic world. Today, even non-gamers heard the name Twitch somewhere. Shear’s predictions resonate even more, having experienced the isolation of worldwide lockdowns. “There’s going to be millions of these campfires lit over the next few years. And on every topic, you’re going to be able to find a campfire that will allow you to bond with your people around the world,” he said.
They did indeed, and we suspect the popularity of these friendly campfires is just at its beginning.
