The four trends set to reshape gaming
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By Dino Strkljevic – Client Lead, Client Computing Group (CCG), Intel Asia Pacific Japan Territory
The gaming market in 2023 is off to a strong start with the release of many blockbuster titles, while we are seeing eSports tournaments kick-off once again. This could lead to a bright future of gaming in 2023 after years of lockdowns around the world, and in the case of several key nations, extending until last year. So, the full re-opening of the world spurred an unprecedented demand for the tournament and eSports sector, and strong years continued for the broader gaming industry. Still, with the impact of current economic headwinds, the industry has found itself with a slower ’22 in its rear vision mirror.
However, as we enter 2023 and look further afield, the long-term prospects of the game industry remain positive, with optimistic forecasts from experts painting a rosy picture for a sector that already boasts more than 3 billion gamers which is also making progress towards gender balance in many game genres, and platforms globally – according to “The Games Market in 2022: The Year in Numbers” report by Newzoo[i] in late 2022.
Indeed, speaking at Vietnam GameVerse 2022, Mr. Le Quang Tu Do, Director Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information, under the Ministry of Information and Communications, announced that Vietnam had around 28.2 million active gamers[ii].
The gaming industry as a whole has become a driving force behind technological innovation. Technologies such as the metaverse, virtual reality, and augmented reality will all reach new development thresholds through innovations over the next decade.
In a virtuous cycle, the development of these same trends will, in turn, change the face of the gaming industry as we know it, moving towards experiences that are more immersive, more engaging, and more spectacular. At the same time, it will make gaming more popular and more appealing to new players.
So let’s take a look at four core trends set to reframe the gaming industry over the next decade.
Esports: Continue to prosper
Set to reach 577 million players and regular viewers by 2024, it is rare for any field to grow as rapidly as eSports has in the past decade. The sector benefits significantly from optimized streaming technology – which saw 921.2 million viewers watching livestream content – a growth rate of over 13% in 2022 according to Newzoo’s 2022 Trends to Watch in Games, Esports, Cloud, and the Metaverse[iii] about streaming platforms.
Based on the Vietnam eSports 2021 white paper from VIRESA[iv], the number of esports players in Vietnam exceeded 18 million. In some major tournaments such as AWC 2020 (Arena of Valor World Cup), the number of views has reached 109 million, a 200% increase over the year prior. 2022 saw a successful from Vietnam esports performance, dominating SEA GAMES 31 with 4 gold medals and 3 silver medals.
In Vietnam, eSports events have continuously taken off thanks to the efforts of the Vietnam Recreational and Electronic Sport Association (VIRESA). Under its stewardship, the forthcoming SEA Games 32 will see a sizeable Vietnam contingent, with red-and-gold clad teams competing across seven games.
While technology keeps evolving every day, the gamers experience is constantly improving for both players and streamers. For example, the power of the Intel® Core™ 13th generation, streamers are able to run blockbuster games while simultaneously streaming high quality video with higher quality and superior overall performance than ever before. These standards will increasingly become more mainstream in the years ahead, offering advanced performance to all players and streamers.
In addition to streaming, the increasingly powerful hardware makes the configuration barrier with eSports almost non-existent. The industry has been progressing toward a GaaS (Game as a Service) delivery model. If we were to look back, games had always been sold as products – think of buying an Atari cartridge in the 80s – when an update came, users would go back to the store and buy a new cartridge. The service model upended this, with game updates, bug-fixes, tweaks, new contents all built into an ongoing service delivery model – ensuring the game is always stable and kept fresh and exciting for players. League of Legends leads the way here, and other titles and publishers have followed in Riot’s footsteps, with Ubisoft notably transitioning to GaaS via Uplay. eSports further benefits from this model, changing the way in which amateurs and pros alike enjoy the game, and the tournaments generate employment and drive the industry forward.
AI delivering High Graphics quality for the masses
Just a few years ago, Ray Tracing was considered an experience that few machine configurations could handle, now this technology has become very popular and widely accessible. Increasingly, global game development teams have strongly promoted the quality of graphics without having to worry about the limitations of the terminal, making the image quality of the game world more vivid, immersive, and closer to reality than ever before.
However, the emergence of image-enhancing technologies like Ray Tracing is not the only notable trend in the graphics field. Right now, hardware developers are dazzling the gaming community thanks to the integration of AI Upscaling: using artificial intelligence to optimize image quality with the algorithms. As a result, gamers have the ultimate visual experience in game without the need to purchase a more powerful PC.
XeSS of the Intel Arc product line is a good example of this technology. In fact, Intel’s ARC A750 and ARC A770 duo have recently surprised analysts, with the capability of delivering a stunning visual experience in games through XeSS. In the global interest currently being generated by AI, it is not difficult to see the AI image processing technology in the game will also explode in the near future.
AR and VR edge ever closer
With the craze of AR games receding, and the relatively slow rollout of the new generation of VR devices, many gamers believe that it is still too early to think about AR and VR. However, this assumption may prove wrong if we look to the research titled ‘AR and VR enter the mainstream’ by Insider Intelligence[v] which predicts that 35% of US internet users will use AR by 2025.
Similarly, the VR market is maintaining significant user growth, as virtual reality devices are becoming more familiar to the public and bringing sharper, more immersive visual experiences, and smoother operation, and also aiming to become more wearable and less cumbersome than earlier iterations – while also increasing their internal processing power.
Gaming becoming more available to more types of players
Accessibility (the ability to provide access games to players with special health considerations) is a concept that many game makers have made great strides in recent years. Thanks to this attention, gamers with visual difficulties, hearing impairments and other disabilities have been able to access and experience games with greater convenience.
Over the course of a two-year study, Intel researchers learned that many features helpful to gamers with disabilities are not especially difficult to design in gaming setups, meaning customization and early consideration in the design process are key. With these findings, Intel engineers have integrated solutions for personalized features such as key mapping and speech-to-text.
The gaming industry has only just begun its journey to expand access to as many players as possible. As publishers and manufacturers include more accessibility features, the gaming industry could become the gold standard for building communities with inclusivity and equity in mind.
A study has shown that gamers with special health conditions make up 20% of the global gaming community (according to a study of accessibility.com[vi]), with 94% of gamers with disabilities saying that games seem to provide “physical or mental benefits”, showing that improvements in assistive technology are gradually proving effective. In the following years, this trend will further develop and become the standards for game titles.
The future is promising
The development history of games and the development of technology have always and will always remain intertwined. Leaps in hardware facilitate leaps in software, leaps in software necessitate leaps in hardware, in a cycle that has continually driven both forward and spurred innovation for developers – and most importantly, for players. The next decade will see this cycle continue, driving new and diverse gaming experiences for new and diverse gaming consumers set to enjoy an exciting new frontier of games that integrate AR, VR, Cloud Gaming into a tight ecosystem.
[i] The Games Market in 2022: The Year in Numbers
[ii] Vietnam’s gaming industry is expected to be a spearhead industry in digital transformation and digital economic development in the coming time
[iii] Newzoo’s 2022 Trends to Watch in Games, Esports, Cloud, and the Metaverse
[iv] Vietnam eSports whitepaper
