Today I’m sharing some of the most definitive gaming trends of the 21st century. Just twenty-two years ago, who could have predicted the sheer impact that video gaming would have had on mainstream entertainment?
Here, in the 21st century, the gaming industry is one of the world’s most lucrative and powerful entertainment industries. Having been part of popular culture since the 1980s, gaming developed at breakneck speed from 2000 onwards to be worth as much as $180 billion today. So with that in mind, I thought I’d share some of the gaming trends of the 21st century.
Gaming Trends of the 21st Century
Rather fascinatingly, gaming has now become so integrated into the mainstream that it’s even setting new trends in pop culture. Everything from the gamification of media to the advanced tech that underpins the industry is shaping the business and consumer trends of the future.
Within the industry, however, there have been several key trends ranging from gaming genres to the way we play games that have come to define what gaming is in the 21st century. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at the four most prevalent gaming trends of the 21st century.
Indie Games
As long as there’s been a market for video games, there have been indie developers. However, we can thank the critical developments that have been made in both technological advancements and online distribution since the turn of the century for the AAA quality indie games we have today.
Platforms like Steam and Itch.io provide a unique opportunity for even one-man developers to launch and distribute their games to millions of global players. Meanwhile, venture capitalists – keen to spot that next lightning in a bottle moment – are pouring anything from $100k to $1 million or more per game into indie game development every year. All of this adds up to a whole segment of online and mobile games that retain authentic storylines and gameplay but offer premium-level gaming experiences.
Open World Gaming
As incredible as some of the tech advancements made in the 20th century were, and no matter how engrossing a particular title was, the gameplay still felt limited and restrictive. While we could interact and engage with environments to some degree, last century’s games were still linear and had a definite start and end.
Enter the new Millennium and a surge of interest – and investment – in open world gaming. Titles like Fallout, Elder Scrolls and Grand Theft Auto pioneered huge open and in-game worlds that players could freely explore. Open world gaming still offers storylines for players to follow, but they’re more suggestions rather than requirements.
Rather excitingly, the gaming industry has only just begun to experiment with what’s possible in terms of in-game environments and what gamers can do within them. So who knows what definitive gaming trends of the 21st century are in the pipeline now!
iGaming
In the year 2000, iGaming may have been a niche segment of the gaming industry, but in 2022 it’s an industry that’s well on track to being worth over $100 billion. iGaming has digitised and updated casino gaming classics like slots and table card games for a modern audience. With such a huge selection of titles to choose from, it’s an industry that is constantly innovating to bring the latest gaming experiences to online players.
The rise and impact of iGaming has even been integrated into other gaming segments. Social casino games and mobile apps, in which gamers play for points against their friends rather than real money, are phenomenally popular – even traditional gaming companies like SEGA have jumped on board the trend.
Mobile Games
Who remembers Nokia’s 20th-century “flagship” game, Snake? Pretty laughable, no? At the start of the century, the choice of mobile games was limited, to say the least. However, fast forward 20 or so years and mobile gaming has risen to become the world’s most popular gaming medium.
At the end of 2021, mobile was the entire gaming industry’s most profitable market, generating $93.2 billion in revenues (source: Newzoo). This segment has developed at a truly astonishing rate; mobile gaming audiences now number in their billions, and the technology that powers gaming on the go is some of the most advanced around.
Take AR (Augmented Reality) for example. Spearheaded by 2016’s mammoth mobile hit, Pokemon Go, the tech has since been integrated into the wider gaming industry. Meanwhile, leading smartphone manufacturers are continually pushing for advanced innovation with every new release.
Finally, have you got any other ideas for pivotal gaming trends of the 21st century? Let me know in the comments if you have!
