Unit 13 - Understanding the games industry Assignment 2 Task 2 - Industry and Marketing Trends
This report is about the trends in the current industry and marketing, it covers who plays these games and what they want. Industry trends are the large companies and the technology they produce and develop and Marketing trends are the type of people that play the games and what they like.
Market Trends - In Britain 7 out 10 people have played some sort of video game within the last six months. People that are 45+ are playing more than that of kids/teens. The most used format are apps with smartphones being the most popular device. Trivia/word/puzzle games are the most popular genre led by older women. However, consoles are used for the most amount of time. Due to the older women playing puzzle games, there are now more women playing video games in the UK than men according to a report. The gaming audience had reached 69% of the UK population, that's 33.5 million people, by 2014 (all stats are from 2014). There are now less children and teenagers playing games than people over 44 years old. 61% of games in 6 months of 2014 acquired were free to purchase. Gamers aged 16+ spend an average of 11 hours gaming whereas 8 - 15 year olds spend around 20 hours. Apps are the most popular format with 55% of the British playing them, this is then followed by online games at 48% and last but not least, disc-based games at 40% of the population. The things that actually drive the UK market are cheaper and more intelligent smartphones in the market, growth and variety of social networks, easier access to internet of a higher speed, tablet PC market growth and the amount of leisure time that customers enjoy. The UK has over 30,000,000 smartphones with the majority being higher end.
Industry Trends - The idea of VR with friends is an interesting one. When VR was first developed it felt like it would be a long wait before we got multiplayer (or even if we ever would). VR is such an amazing concept alone that it developing any further was asking too much of the product. The only visible downside of this platform is the sale price, but the industry aren't concerned about the amount of sales going lower than expected because of the pure demand it has. VR stands for Virtual Reality and, as the name suggests, it creates a virtual world that the user can interact with and be immersed into. AR (Augmented Reality) has a big future in the gaming industry, specifically the mobile gaming industry, and its current reputation which is staggeringly positive. The most well-known app that uses AR was Pokemon Go that came out back in last years summer period, but there are many other apps out there creating more immersive gameplay at our fingertips. AR generates a users view of the real world and should make them find it hard to distinguish between what is reality and what isn't. Incremental Console Upgrades are quickly becoming a major part of the gaming industries future. Soon console models will be upgrading as quickly as phones with small changes added to a console and then sold as a new console. An example was the Xbox One S making it slimmer and slightly better. Because of this, consoles will be coming out much faster making companies gain more of a profit. Freemium (Free + Premium) is used in free apps to generate revenue for its company. However, many people believe that this is ruining the mobile gaming industry because of how it is aimed at people who are competitive with friends and will spend a lot of money, without realising the cost, just to get ahead at something. This way of gaining profit can be very effective when done correctly (whether ethical or not). Freemium creates a state of urgency to upgrade, it leads its free users towards paid for updates and often offer promotions. All of these definitely have more positive effects and results towards the industry rather than its customers, however, the customers can gain more entertainment so who can really blame them?
In conclusion, I'd say that I was really surprised by the statistics about women playing more video games than men but I definitely feel like it would be the other way around by a mile, if it was just console and PC platforms. I found the fact that the market and industry trends are very different very surprising as they don't often go hand in hand or join up. The market is about catering to what the people want and the industry is about developing new products and gaining more money in new ways. If I was a games developer the only Industry Trends I'd take advantage of would be the AR and VR as they are both more focused on developing whereas, the Incremental Console Upgrades and Freemium feel too much like taking advantage of people. I would however, take advantage of all of the marketing trends but only to try and please the audience I'd have.
References:
http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/industries/games/games-facts-and-figures/market-strengths-and-trends
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/11-video-game-trends-that-will-change-the-future-of-the-industry
http://augray.com/blog/emerging-trends-in-gaming-industry/
https://medium.com/@LatePanda/how-freemium-is-destroying-the-games-industry-5d255bb39a98#.ah4yy2hgo
https://theappsolutions.com/blog/marketing/freemium-gaming/
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