The next revolution in the world of videogames is cloud gaming. It is an online game mode in which the user runs the game on a network server instead of on his own device, without the need for specific consoles or computers. The main companies in the sector are already taking positions in this field.
The video game is one of the most powerful sectors in the global entertainment industry. With a year-on-year growth of 10%, in 2018 it has generated almost 135,000 million dollars, a figure that could become 174,000 million in 2021 according to the predictions made by Newzoo.
It has a strong geographical concentration since the Asia-Pacific region accounts for half of the world market and the United States a quarter. It is also an activity focused on a few participants, given that the twenty-five largest companies in the sector generated 77% of global market revenues in 2017. We talk about giants like the Chinese Tencent, Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Google or Nintendo.
Cloud gaming is basically the development of online games including online gambling. For information, many online casinos do not require special devices as a medium to play. They usually rely on a large server that regulates everything; starting from the games offered, bonuses, to payments.
The development of the online casino industry in the United States has shown encouraging results in recent years. One of them is Online casinos NJ who also leads the big American online casino industry. In turn, the experiences provided by these online casinos helped drive the spread of cloud gaming.
In spite of its relative youth, since it is a form of digital native leisure, the video game has undergone a great evolution throughout its forty years of history, from those primitive games for the Atari consoles of the eighties, to the recent title Fornite from Epic Games, which stands as the fashion game today worldwide.
It is a rapidly evolving market spurred by technological innovation. At the present time, there are several trends that can guide the course that this sector will take in the coming times. On the one hand, the application of virtual and augmented reality applications, still incipient, promises to turn the game into a truly immersive activity. In some cases, the player immerses himself completely in the digital worlds of the game, while in others – as in the case of Pokémon Go – fictional elements are projected on the reality that the user contemplates.
A second trend is the so-called eSports, also known as electronic sports or cybersports, which are based on the live broadcast of competitions between multiplayer video game teams, and which are already a worldwide phenomenon coming to Europe and the United States from Asia.
Finally, a phenomenon associated with the deployment of broadband telecommunications appears in the near time horizon: cloud gaming or cloud games. It consists of a way to play directly on the internet through streaming, equivalent to Netflix or YouTube in the world of audiovisual or Spotify in the world of music.
Many of the big companies are already running projects related to streaming platforms: Microsoft and Project xCloud, Sony with Playstation Now, Google and its Project Stream or Verizon with Verizon Gaming.
A part of the philosophy of cloud computing, that is, to process data on powerful remote computers instead of the user’s personal equipment. All this gives rise to a new business model, the game as a service, in which the player does not physically buy the game as before, but instead pays to access it, that is, acquires the right of use.
