Sergey Karshkov: How Technology Has Catalysed the Gaming Industry

Gaming has become one the world’s largest consumer industries, dwarfing the film and music industries. This has – in no small part – been down to technology, which has transformed gaming from simple entertainment to an immersive and holistic experience, often likened to a lifestyle. 

Technology has not only enabled the gaming industry to become more accessible, creative and stimulating, it has also moulded it into a community – an ecosystem in which participants come for a variety of purposes, not least establishing social relationships and connections. 

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Streaming has been at the centre of this trend. This involves individuals recording and broadcasting their own gaming experiences to viewers on platforms including Twitch and YouTube, and covers a wide range of gaming such as esports and Let’s Play-style gaming and speedrunning. While streaming technology and platforms have been around for over a decade – longer, in some cases – their appeal has rocketed in recent years. 

This has been accelerated by the pandemic, which erected barriers to social interactions, rituals and habits, prompting an increasing number of Gen Zers and millennials to leverage streaming to fill the vacuum. It is therefore unsurprising that Twitch – one of the most popular gaming platforms – had its best year yet in 2020, with the number of hours watched increasing by up to 50 percent on a year-on-year basis. This almost entirely mirrors the growth of the streaming sector as a whole between March 2020 and April 2021, which was up by a full 45 percent. 

Advances in mobile technology have also catalysed the growth of the gaming industry. This relates to the ever-rising availability of smartphones, which have enabled users to access games regardless of their location. 

A proliferation of gaming apps has ensued, with as many as 316,802 mobile gaming apps available in the first quarter of 2021 on the App store alone. This is exceeded by the number of gaming apps on the Google Play Store, which has jumped by 40% in a year and hit around 480,000 over the same time period. 

Recent reports also show that mobile gaming has risen to the top of people’s preferences in terms of dynamic or on-the-go entertainment, and have become the most popular app category. In short, mobile devices are enabling more people than ever before to experience an increasing range of options that match their preferences and expectations. 

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have also transformed gaming experiences, capturing people’s imaginations and pushing the boundaries of the industry. VR harnesses the power of technology to drop users into a situation that feels like real life, and relies on a set of tools that are becoming increasingly sophisticated and user-friendly including headsets, sensor-equipped gloves and hand controllers. 

AR, on the other hand, expands a user’s perspective, adding digital elements to a real-life environment by way of a device’s camera. In gaming, this is used to effectively transform the real world into a gameplay arena. 

Both technologies have been enabled by cloud-based servers and with 5G poised to reduce the cost of data transmission, this trend will be strengthened even further. It is because of the technological advancements that are getting at their peak with each passing day as new service providers are entering the market. This is true for both services, be it game server hosting or a better broadband connection in order to offer a great gaming experience to the players.  Thus, in terms of hosting, you must ensure to avail yourself of those game hosting services that offer you an excellent environment along with the user-friendly interface, that too with unlimited storage for you to use as per the need. And for broadband services, you must seek those with lower latency and fast speed with a good router. Having access to such services would indeed help you witness the excellence technology has rendered to the gaming industry.

Technology is perhaps the most influential driver behind the meteoric growth of the gaming industry. It has made gaming more accessible and stimulating and has injected it with a sense of community. With more drastic technological advances in sight, the gaming industry is on course to continue to exceed expectations. Marketing agency 9 Pandas, led by its founder Sergey Karshkov, is well positioned to advise businesses that are exploring how technology can strengthen their offering and market presence in the gaming industry. 

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