The hot new place to play games isn?t on a console, it?s on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Orkut, and a plethora of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Gaming is undergoing a paradigm shift as users turn more attention to these new age devices and connectivity medium. These sprawling friendship networks are opening up digital gaming to new audiences while, at the same time, unleashing entirely new types of games on the world.
Gamers now demand a level of convenience and flexibility traditional consoles or PCs have not been able to deliver. As the popularity of smartphones and tablets continues to expand, gaming will remain a key component in the use of these devices. Although they are never used primarily for gaming, mobile games are the most downloaded application category across most application stores, says Tuong Nguyen, principal research analyst at research firm, Gartner.
Gartner recently came out with a report which says that spending on gaming will exceed $74 billion in 2011, up 10.4% from 2010 spending of $67 billion. By 2015, spending will reach $112 billion. ?Mobile gaming will continue to thrive as more consumers expand their use of new and innovative portable connected devices,? the research analyst notes. This large market size means that many consumers embrace gaming as a core piece of their entertainment budget and will continue to play as long as game publishers deliver compelling and fun games.
Closer home too, the gaming industry is seeing a shift towards increasing social gaming users through social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Orkut. Though with over six million users, the market is still nascent in the country as only 30% of the gamers have moved to social gaming. Nevertheless, there is enough room for growth as it is all about social interaction, playing and getting rewarded by virtual points using social networking sites.
Social games have enjoyed a worldwide surge in popularity in recent years. According to a recent report from Business Insights, the social gaming market encapsulates nearly 600 million users and was worth nearly $1.5 billion worldwide in 2010. China and Japan are considered as big social gaming markets and now India has also joined the bandwagon as emerging markets. More than 30% of the internet users in India play games on social networks on a daily basis. Social gaming and social networking are expected to grow in sync helping each of themselves becoming gaming a standalone industry.
A Nielsen report says that social networks now take up 23% of time online, with online games taking 10%, the two biggest shares of time spent online.
Facebook already has several games, most popular being Farmville, Cityville and Zynga Poker. With growing numbers on Facebook, industry players such as 7Seas, iBibo, Zapak, among others have chosen these sites as a platform for introduction of games.
Perhaps, the next logical step would be mobile gaming with the increasing usage of smartphones, says L Maruti Sanker, managing director, 7Seas Entertainment. ?The integration will allow players with their Facebook account and enable sharing relevant gaming content, including social plug-ins that enable Facebook users to comment,?Like?, all games, challenge, invite friends and other exclusive content,? he adds. 7Seas Entertainment has added a social gaming platform to its online casual gaming portals, http://www.neodelight.com and http://www.onlinerealgames.com, which already have in their kitty over 500 high-scored games across all genres.
At a macro level, the online games market is picking up fast. Over the next five years, gaming hardware?s market share will remain constant while software spending will lose share to online-gaming spending, the fastest-growing segment. Gartner estimates consumer spending on global online gaming (subscriptions and micro transactions) will show a compound annual growth rate of 27 % through 2015, with consumer spending on subscription fees slightly declining while spending on virtual goods will grow exponentially.
Ashesh Jani, partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells feels that until now, the gaming industry tried its hands on introducing gaming on the mobile phone and even on satellite (DTH) television. This was in addition to the traditional method of sales, that is, by sale of games on CDs. A new avenue for gaming is now available on social networking sites. It has been observed that the ?Facebook Generation? is keen to explore the gaming arena which appear on their login page on social networking sites. The related software allows the user to play with an opponent who may or may not be online.
