With the transition of many activities to the online format, the gaming world is changing especially rapidly. In this article, we tell you how the gaming industry will live in 2022.
1. Games Services
Access to computer games by subscription (GaaS) is not a very new, but quite popular way of monetization now, convenient for both gamers and publishers. Instead of buying an expensive release once, the player pays a relatively small amount for as long as they are interested in the game. And this, by the way, motivates developers to develop the story, and not just fix bugs.
In this format, the player, first of all, pays for new content. This can be not only a permanent subscription but also a season pass, access to individual adventures or events, as well as microtransactions – the purchase of game items and resources.
The popular trend of in-house game development will continue into 2022. So if you have such goals, then everything depends on your desire, resources, and a competent game development agency.
2. Neural networks and artificial intelligence
Today, it is not enough for gamers to simply pass level after level in order to reach the final. Much more valuable than emotional rewards – the ability to defeat a difficult opponent, cope with an unobvious mystery, or find out what the player is capable of. In addition, the plausibility of game events and their variability is important so that you can go through the scene again and again in different conditions.
Artificial intelligence, whose core technology for application is neural networks, provides such potential. They contain thousands of parameters, learn on the fly, exhibit increasingly complex behavior, and challenge the player.
3. Free-to-play competitive shooters
Free-to-play is a popular monetization model where you can download and interact with a game for free, but money opens up new possibilities. And this gives rise to endless holy wars about whether to donate or not, because after buying top armor, elixirs and artifacts, it becomes much easier to overcome an enemy or boss.
The free-to-play model is used in many popular online multiplayer games: CS: GO, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, Halo, Battlefield, Valiant.
4. Socialization
With the transition of the world to remote work, the amount of live communication among people has decreased. This has also affected the gaming industry: social elements in games are becoming more important, and developers understand the importance of comfortable communication between players, so they will develop appropriate functions. In 2022 Parties Introducing Fortnite / Epic Games “Parties” in Fortnite and other games will become even more popular – it’s an opportunity to chat with friends regardless of whether the borders are open.
Social features are also promoted by gaming platforms like Roblox. They are available even for preschoolers – and, by the way, help to learn English, because users from different countries usually choose this language for communication.
5. Fashion items from the real world
Expensive skins have not gone anywhere. But now in games, you can also buy trendy sneakers and even try them out. Fortnite created the Jumpman Zone and Air Jordan XI Cool Gray sneakers appeared in Fortnite / Epic Games a special challenge in the Jumpman zone – you need to find shoes and perform a masterful super throw into the basketball hoop.
Gucci designed virtual sneakers for hypebeasts in Roblox and VRChat / The Verge joined the trend, even the Gucci fashion house, and Nike announced Nike Creates NIKE LAND on Roblox / Nike News about creating a metaverse in the Roblox game. More such integrations are expected in 2022, which are sure to please fans of games and fans of famous fashion brands.
6. NFT games
The term NFT has become NFT beats cheugy to be Collins Dictionary’s word of the year / The Guardian as HarperCollins’ word of the year 2021. In the gaming industry, these tokens also left their mark.
What is NFT? The abbreviation stands for “non-fungible token”. In fact, this is a unique electronic certificate that gives the right to own a digital asset – for example, the first entry of The Birth of Wikipedia / Christie’s on Wikipedia or the Everyday: The First 5,000 Days collage by artist Beeple, who sold every day: The First 5 in March 2021 000 Days / Christie’s for US$69 million.
NFT games combine competitive mechanics and collect unique items or creatures, which are represented by non-fungible tokens. Some of the most popular now is Axie Infinity, Town Star, Splinterlands. And in 2017, the CryptoKitties game made a lot of noise: in it, you can buy and raise digital kittens represented by NFT tokens, cross them and get offspring – including very rare individuals that cost thousands of dollars.
Read more about NFT games on the nft game development company website.
