Once upon a time the gaming wars were fought between the console junkies and the PC fanatics. Gaming was serious business; only the hardcore need apply. Today gaming is still a serious business (with emphasis on the business) but the landscape has changed. Thanks to the proliferation of more powerful handheld devices in the form of phones, phablets and tablets coupled with a wide open app market that has democratized game development, it’s no longer geeky to be a gamer.
And when grandma is a gamer, it’s no surprise that 2015 is poised to be the year in which the overall value of the worldwide mobile games market will surpass that of consoles. This is the year mobile will become the global industry’s most lucrative sector. That’s a big deal when you consider that it wasn’t that long ago that gaming was considered a niche pursuit. The rapid pace of the change brings up two big questions: why and why now?
The tech will make games better than ever
Snapdragon’s mobile technology, among other innovations, has made mobile games comparable to sixth gen console games or even better in both look and feel possible. Incredible mobile GPUs support speed, graphics and length of play in one device, so players who would have had to fire up consoles to get the quality they want can now enjoy the same level of game play on phones and tablets. Aesthetically-rich titles like the RPG Chaos Rings just would not have been possible on the devices that were on the market only a few years ago. This year, expect to see games that blow 2014’s top titles out of the water because the technology gap between mobile and consoles is shrinking at a breakneck pace.
The mobile market will keep booming
The mobile audience on a global scale is huge and unlike consoles, mobile devices are a worldwide must-have. Facebook titles have blurred the lines between social and gaming. And the democratization of design means there are more games being played on more devices than ever. In fact, according to the Quarterly Global Games Market Update from Newzoo the current mobile games market is worth $25 billion – a jump of 42% from 2013. It doesn’t look like a saturation point has been reached in any one market, either on the player side or the development side, which points to continuing growth through the year and beyond.
The VR revolution will finally happen
Oculus Rift is just the beginning. Competitors are cropping up each day and forecasts say that virtual reality is set to blow up. While it was predicted that 2014 would be the year of VR, it turned out there were still some kinks that needed to be worked out. Now in 2015 word on the street is that Oculus is planning a limited rollout by summertime, and a torrent of headsets like the Gear VR is on the horizon waiting to flood the market. If predictions pan out, this will be the year that what was once niche concept hits the mainstream with a bang.
The big question is whether the overall gaming ecosystem can keep up with these changes. Games used to be a product. Now they’re being treated on more and more fronts like a service. In the US consumers are using all four screens, with mobile augmenting – not replacing – console or PC gaming, but that could easily change as gamers continue to shift not only how they allocate their play time and where that play happens, but also how they spend their gaming dollars.
