Recent trends in gaming

[Heijoushin]

How are you gentlemen.

 

I have an interview with a gaming company on Monday. As such, I'm currently doing a little research about trends in the industry. As an individual, I obviously have a lot of blind spots (since I only play certain genres), so I wanted to ask your opinions. Speaking broadly, what do you think are current trends in gaming? 

 

I can think of a few:

1. On steam, PUBG is the most popular game (does that make it the most popular game in the English speaking world?) Why do you think this game is so popular?

2. VR: The companies are still pouring money into this, but I haven't got the impression that its really taking off. Do you think it will?

3. This is more last years news, but indie studios are making a big comeback these days. Why do you think that is?

4. One site that I saw suggests that the average age of gamers is 35. I guess that means that the people who grew up in the 90s (when gaming really began to take off) are the main market now. 

5. Social games are apparently huge (I don't play em so I wouldn't know). Why is this do you think?

 

And anything else! I would love to hear your opinion  

[Orogun01]

I'd say that loot boxes and microtransactions seems to be the topic of the year.

[SonicMage117]

Loot boxes and piñatas for sure...

 

VR doesn't really seem to be taking off as much as the fans hope. It hasn't really grown from the beginning of the year, sitting at 350,000 (a tiny audience). And I think VR users are finally discovering that it has more limitations than they thought considering that games like Doom VFR rely on blink.

[ShadySands]

Loot boxes and piñatas for sure...

 

VR doesn't really seem to be taking off as much as the fans hope. It hasn't really grown from the beginning of the year, sitting at 350,000 (a tiny audience). And I think VR users are finally discovering that it has more limitations than they thought considering that games like Doom VFR rely on blink.

VR can be expensive as well so that's a pretty big barrier to entry for what may turn out to just be a gimmick for all they know

[Hurlshort]

VR also gives a decent portion of the population motion sickness. That is a big obstacle to overcome.

[SonicMage117]

The VR community is the worst community I've ever come across, apparently most of them have an eletist attitude and claim that pixel art games should just stop being made and how 2D games are worth no longer playing.

[evilcat]

Todays trend dont seem different from yesterday.

• Gambling merging. P2W was before, but mixing it with gambling mechanism is new, and could stick around. Gambling is not cool, but profitable yes.
• Death to MMO. All hail quickmach. Quickmaches are somehow popular since more people have half hours for casual play. But this one was here for some time already.
• F2P is going strong. And F2P dont really look worse than "box" games.
• PUB is just another Team Fortress or Counter Strike. Simple game with one good twist.
• The recently most played games on Steam is exacly what would you expect: Call of Duty, Wolfestein, Assasins Creed. and bunch of f2p. But then Steam may be overburden with amount of games, with just a few being decent, and every publisher has own platform.
• It is cheaper to make spectacular looking game. The hopes for single A games are high, but havent yet dominante. Nioh was good.
• VR does not offer yet good cooperative games. And coop games are most popular.
• Games as Service. This is probably the buzz world of 2017.(maybe after lootbox)

Games as Service is interesting. Since Netflix for games almost exists (Humble Monthly and Origin), also without game as service Path of Exile or Warframe will not be as good. Also Europa Universalis reached details level impossible for single release game. So it is not really bad. However P2W is bad. If the best way to play is drop cash, get loot, and go play something else, then why to bother in the first place.

Edited November 18, 2017 by evilcat

[Mamoulian War]

Points 3 and 4 are IMO contributing to each other. I am 39, and because of the toxic onlone community, toxic abuse of "games as a service" (season passes, microtransactions, lootboxes, locked content behind paywalls) in "AAA" world, I started to prefer smaller budget games, made by real gamers over big budget games made by focus groups. And I really fell in love with a lot of these games (I count into smaller budget games not only indies, but also "true" Japanese games). FFXV was for me kick in the nuts but Tales of Berseria and Zestiria, Yakuza 0 and Kiwami, have taken care of my injuries.

[PathofStars]

I've been playing PubG for a couple of days, I bought a microphone specifically ) I like it that I can play with my friends and need a co-operation