Tech: The Boldest Video Gaming Trends for 2018 Revealed

The latest Tokyo Games Show took the gaming world by surprise when Sony Interactive Entertainment announced many of its upcoming releases at a press conference while it was also confirmed that Final Fantasy 9 will soon be available for PS4 in Japan. Great video gaming developers like Sony obviously will be making the headlines long after the show, but we can’t help it, but wonder what else is in stock for the gaming world in 2018.

Top 5 Gaming Trends to Watch Out For

With the advancement of technology, the video gaming industry is one of the most exciting, yet challenging spheres to be involved with. Similar to other fiercely contested industries like the online betting sites, for example, video game developers now have to take all their chances and create games that suit the taste of even the pickiest players.

Like betting, video games, although seen as skill-based games, depend on a great portion of luck when it comes to finding the best game deals and when playing for real money on video streams like Glitch, for example. However, playing the real money slot games offered at www.slotswebsites.org/real-money/ does not give you better chances to hit the jackpot when compared to taking part in a gaming tournament.

As video game developers adapt to the changing circumstances of their most devoted clients, gamers who take it seriously also compete with one another to know how to grab a deal when they see it. If you’re one of those gaming addicts, let’s future-proof ourselves and take it to the next level with these 5 bold predictions!

Mainstreaming eSports and playing for money

Undeniably, eSports like DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike Overwatch that made a huge breakthrough last year will now firmly establish the tendency for all mainstream video game developers – more tournaments, more players and individual teams, more money being made each minute, but at a higher cost. The anticipated cost will be for the viewers and players, though, as developing companies scramble to reclaim free tournament streaming.

With over 500 million viewers, eSports games are already bringing a significant revenue, but imagine the numbers if this was a paid service like your cable TV, for example. Even if the backlash is expected as it happened when Nintendo tried to charge YouTube sharers, companies will not give up this piece of the cake. This is why eSports will benefit from more investment in tournaments while individual teams are expected to approach greater sponsorship when struggling to remain competitive in this changing environment.

Moreover, Blizzard’s Overwatch League of 2016 has now become a household name for the whole eSports industry, with billions of dollars bet on the top teams, just like in professional soccer. In 2018, we expect that the line between gaming and gambling will be even thinner, as the Overwatch trend will challenge its major rivals to follow suit and really, what else they can offer than stellar professional careers and top footballer payslips to their best gamers.

More affordable gaming experience across all platforms

Even if eSports will only become costlier for the average gamer, across all other platforms and consoles, companies will compete to beat each other’s prices. With the release of new hardware every year and yes, we’re expecting Sony’s PS5 next year, all the latest models will become cheaper. This is nothing new for the gaming world where it’s so usual to buy second-hand gaming consoles and games just after a month of their release, so hold your horses and don’t rush to get the new XBox One in November.

Surely, it will be as good as it is in January 2018. This is what happened when Nintendo quietly released Switch this year, a good and cheaper, yet less powerful alternative to PlayStation and Xbox. Nintendo understands well its position on the gaming market and has adopted a different strategy of creating a buzz around its alternative gaming experience, so well-suited for the wave of trendy indie games currently on the market. A lot of smaller developers will explore this strategy to focus on their niche fans, yet offer something new more frequently.

Traditional video game development for consoles will also be diversified with more mobile app development to suit the insatiable players. Not only is there going to be plenty of choice for the gamers, but this will happen across all platforms from PC to console to mobile, with one common tread – augmented reality on all devices.

Augmented reality – to be or not to be?

Virtual and augmented reality left its mark on all of us in the past couple of years, with VR glasses becoming a new trend not only in gaming but also in the film and tourism industries. Following the attraction of video gaming graphics, traditional industries like betting are also undergoing a significant shift to augmented reality, and, of course, to mobile.

Just have a look at the 3D slot games on SlotsWebsites.org. The greatest villain for this shift is Pokémon Go that opened the Pandora box for the rest of the industry, but it also revealed a very lucrative market for the use of virtual reality – educational and self-improvement games that train the whole body and the brain simultaneously.

These are surely to experience a great boom in 2018, as gaming studios continue to compete for less developed markets. However, how much hope should we put in the VR? This year, AR has been on the downside with very few mentions of anything that it’s not related to catching Pokémons but augmented reality games are expected to bounce back, as gamers love hyper-realism and to be in control of their game.

This is why the trend to incorporate the physical world into the immersive graphics experience of the games is here to stay, and it will continue to gain more ground, especially when it offers the fans more creative rights to adjust the games to their liking.

More customised features, as players become developers

The biggest threat for gaming developers and marketers is the fact that their games might soon be forgotten.

To that end, their best bid is to follow the example of role play games and give more powers to the gamer to tweak the in-game features while following a different narrative relative to the changes of their character, the surroundings and decisions.

In 2018, gamers will enjoy this freedom to modify, test and create while never ever playing the same game ever again.

Things will get even juicier when multi-player games follow suit. Following the successes of multi-player cloud or online games like Grand Theft Auto, in 2018, we’ll witness a more pronounced blending of multiple perspectives while the games will become more sociable blurring the boundaries of social media itself.

With the more intense participation and personalization across streaming platforms, next year we’re surely up for the best storyline twists in gaming history!