What Gaming Trends the Leading Games Developers Forecast?

The representatives of the leading gaming development companies give interviews and answer the Q&As on a regular basis, to improve their brands’ recognition. Gaming developers Bethesda, EA, Valve, Blizzard, and other companies, take chances to tell more potential players about their brands and games.

They are often asked about the new and upcoming gaming trends they notice in the industry. Below, three of the most prominent new trends in the gaming industry are shortly explained. These trends have been mentioned by several developers already, therefore we can expect them to stay.

Mixing Video Games and Social Games

As the online gaming niche continues to develop in all aspects, from technologies and mechanics, to visual arts and the level of player engagement, all sub niches in the gaming industry will see themselves merging more and more. The most obvious merging experiences that await for all of us is merging video games, social games, and gambling.

The reason why is pretty simple – each sub niche wants its own piece of the bigger pie, and tries to engage bigger audiences, sometimes luring them from the competing niche. Video games start adding more player engagement and interplay, like in social games, and also start adding the gambling element, to make the players deposit more to the game.

The developers of gambling products, in their turn, start adding more gaming elements to their games, to keep the players engaged and entertained longer. They start paying higher attention to visuals and game plots, trying to compete for customers’ attention with huge video gaming platforms.

These trends, on the one hand, lead to merging, which may not be a good thing for the companies, because in order to be competitive, they need to put way more effort, and also more technology, into their products. On the other hand, this boosts some healthy competition, because eventually, it is the players who decide where and what to play.

Cryptocurrency Gaming

Cryptocurrency confidently enters not only crypto fans’ lives, but also the lives of gamers and gamblers. Due to the wide variety of coins, a rich choice of management options, and the general level of flexibility of cryptocurrencies for online payments, more and more players start considering digital coins as means of payment for games, or for in-game payments. The same can be claimed about gamblers.

As a result, more games developers in the niche start adding this option to their products, introducing the mechanisms that allow accepting digital currencies in addition to, or instead of the fiat currencies. Different gaming and gambling platforms, in turn, also enhance their payment options choice, adding more and more cryptocurrencies, and crypto wallets, to their banking methods lists.

This trend has been noted by many game developers, and it may have both positive and not-so-positive consequences for players (mostly). The positive consequences include more flexibility in payments, and obviously faster transactions without double currency conversion. The not-so-positive consequences may show themselves when the local governments start improving the legal regulations of cryptocurrencies, and perhaps start adding fees, taxes, limitations, additional safety checks, etc.

Bonus Buy Features

One of the truly interesting trends that many developers in the gaming niche underline is the desire of the players to invest immediately into the Bonus Buy feature, instead of waiting for the bonuses to arrive in a “natural” gaming way. It seems that players believe that investing a bigger sum immediately into the desired bonus is more potentially profitable and promising, than depositing and betting small amounts in regular bets, hoping to hit the desired bonus in a “natural” way.

This may seem a very straightforward and even somewhat boring trend when talking about gaming, but that depends mostly on the players’ decisions. In video games, some players prefer to go through the plot slowly, trying to get all the perks naturally, while others prefer buying skins and weapons right away. The same happens when gambling is in the spotlight – some prefer to bet small, waiting for luck to come their way (or not), while others want to immediately hit an exciting bonus.

As a result, for the game developers, it makes sense to always add the Bonus Buy feature to their products, along with the well-designed gameplay and plot, to meet the needs of both types of players.

Final Thoughts

Checking out the new and upcoming trends always makes sense, especially if other leaders in the niche start discussing or forecasting them. However, following the trends must not limit game developers’ creativity and own vision of things.