A question that is common amongst gamers is how the future is going to look, as the industry continues to evolve with technology advancing. You have the emergence of smartphones over the last decade, that has made a remarkable change to gaming and taken the industry to that next level. But what is the future?
When it comes to the gambling side of the gaming industry and this is one that has a bright future ahead, with online platforms continuing to boost this. These online platforms are allowing players to amerce themselves in a similar experience to a traditional casino floor, with games such as blackjack, roulette, baccarat and of course slots. There are now so many different online options available, such as the Very well casino, that is also reviewed here. This includes slots, that has long been the most popular form of gaming within casinos. These offer a host of different games, with both free slots and for real money players. These slots bonuses are why the online options has become so popular. The experience in the future could be further advanced with VR casinos next. Virtual reality casinos will elevate the casino experience and provide players with a realistic gaming experience and similar to that of walking through a Las Vegas casino, and the endless rows of slot machines for players. These will occur through VR headsets, which are going to become more and more common within the near future.
Gaming has been on such a meteoric rise in recent years, and is now taking over the overall online entertainment business. This covers proving a threat to the likes of Netflix, which have been controlling the entertainment business around the world in recent years. This was also something that was stated in 2019 by Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings. He told his shareholders that the main threat to their dominance is gaming and video games, such as Fortnite. That is little surprise, as recently more people tuned into watch the World Championships of the League of Legends than they did the Super Bowl. That is fairly remarkable but shows the direction that gaming is going, as it continues to advance and take over the entertainment business.
More and more people are turning to some form of gaming, with forecasts now predicted around 2.7 billion players worldwide, which is nearing a third of the entire global population. In 2019 alone, mobile gaming brought in $64.4 billion, PC gaming $29.6 billion, Console gaming $15.4 billion and VR and AR gaming at $6.3 billion. The latter expected to be one of the fastest growing parts of gaming, with technology advancing and this appearing the next step and future of gaming. Each industry is projected to continue their growth in 2020 and moving forward, with investments continuing to be put into each area. This includes many of the big tech companies all getting involved, such as Apple, Google and Amazon. Each producing gaming products, with Amazon also having purchased Twitch back in 2014. A company that is the biggest gaming streaming service in the world.
There are many key areas that are part of the future of gaming. One of these is AI or Artificial intelligence in video gaming. AI has fast become incorporated into everyday life and gaming is no different. Mixed reality and augmented reality gaming and also part of this and becoming much more common in game releases. AR gaming has seen some major growth and 2016 was a key year, with Pokémon Go hitting the market. This was the game changer for augmented reality games, with players around the world, and the game having surpassed $3 billion in sales, with over 150 million active users each month.
Another area mentioned previously is virtual reality, which is seeing vast investments from not only casinos but tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Each developing hardware and games. 5G is also set to be a game changer when it comes to AR and gaming. It really is an exciting future for the gaming industry and the growth is expected to continue, with technology continuing to be the major factor behind this.
Originally published July 31, 2020. Updated August 17, 2020.
