To estimate the industry and the whole game development future is not an easy task, as life is truly unpredictable. However, we will give it a try, and share with you our expectations that derive from our 14+ years of experience. We believe that being aware of the trends and emerging technologies in gaming will only strengthen the ability to deal with any possible challenges. 

So, ladies and gentlemen, shall we begin? 

Let’s start with a tiny recap of previous years. In this regard, we can’t say that Covid actually influenced the industry in terms of work organization, as many companies adopted home offices even before the social restrictions were imposed. However, the competition among the industry players on the market definitely intensified. 

In fact, the pandemic has had an impact on the users rather than on the industry as a whole, because users have changed their consumption of game development services and goods, and their attitude and needs to the games has shifted. Naturally, during lockdowns and curfews, people have spent much more time at home than ever. Respectively, they had to occupy themselves, very often with something interacting and digital, like games. As a result, game development saw  their sales increase. Many were also motivated to improve their marketing and supply chains.

Average weekly time spent playing video games worldwide as of January 2021, by age group

Source Statista 2022

In addition, the spread of smartphones has added the extension of game development experiences for users by making them more realistic and entertaining. 

Some of the main events that had an impact were Facebook’s rebranding and turning into Meta and the rise of NFT games.

First and foremost, we expect that the game development market will keep offering and releasing new games as the competition rises. We are looking forward to new technology in gaming, too. In this blog post, you will find out the most topical gaming trends 2022.

According to Forrester, the following overall emerging technologies trends that can influence the game development industry are as follows: 

• • rise of the Metaverse
  • long-term cooperation over one-time deals
  • working greener and more sustainable
  • generations inclusion
  • lifestreaming

Rise of Metaverse popularity in 2021

Source: Google Trends

At Moonmana, we can’t wait and see how things will develop. On our side, so far, for 2022, we expect the next gaming industry trends.

In scientific research on modern arts, Researchgate suggests that the innovation in digital art and application in games has a great potential to involve more audiences. The reasons for that are that first, it provides more aesthetics and therefore can meet the possible needs of a broader amount of people, and second, it can skill up and level up creative and digital perceptions. Who knows, perhaps it can even grow into new contemporary arts, as a successor of cubism and constructivism, and overall bring the gaming up to a new level. In any case, we think that game art will be even more trendy. 

Here is where we would like to quote Forbes, which argues, “AI will be bigger than most”. AI is applied to improve the development time – the time frame we need to create a game. It is also used for character development and how they and the environment can possibly interact with users. Overall, it enhances the processes of games creation. However, its application is still under consideration, and it needs to be discussed. We predict that AI involvement will receive more attention in the forthcoming years.

In 2022, E-sports game development trends will continue to show demand, as well as be more tightly connected with lifestreaming and NFT. 

According to Insider Intelligence, e-sports, as a type of competitive gaming, will grow in demand, as well as in the number of gamers and fans because it genuinely adds a direct connection to actual sports and players, especially in times of social restrictions. 

The same relates to lifestreaming, which is now widely used on many platforms and social media. Lifestreaming impacts the game industry and e-sports, and it clearly blurs the line between actual and digital sports.

Despite NFT tokens being there for recent years, they haven’t been used as much for games before. Overall, the market of NFT has plummeted to $7 billion in 2021, as stated by NFGTO.io. More and more people engage in earning while game development. 

We expect that crypto and blockchain will be there to stay and keep moving forward the non-fungible tokens games development, as well as in the ‘play-to-earn approach’. NFT-related games industry is steadily on their way to their prime time in the future.

Perks of NFT game development:

• blockchain improves functionality and security
• market growth is tremendous
• generates revenue and helps to earn assets
• gives richer game development experiences

To cut a long story short, NFT, the latest gaming technology, is the prosperous tech future by generating revenues, allowing games to have better experiences. Generally speaking, Play-to-earn and NFT provide broad investment and growth horizons for the industry.  

Mobile Games are on the rise due to smartphones’ use. That’s why cross-platform games development is in demand. Medium argues that users will require PC games experiences quality on their smartphones, which is challenging for the industry and requires a higher competition on the game development market scene.

Augmented and Virtual Realities still have a huge capacity for the future. However, they are pretty costly to develop, and quite often, this is not worth the trouble. Even though almost 30% of VR industry experts claim that UX is a ground to the wide application of VR, video game industry revenues based on VR are expected to reach $2.4B in 2024, according to Finances Online.

What we are sure of, in 2022 and further, we will definitely see a lot more discussions about the application of AR and VR, as well as Extended Reality in games development. 

There are lots of various predictions nowadays for the forthcoming years. New gaming technologies do not cease to amaze us.

In Moonmana, we keep staying on a high wave, embracing all the latest trends with long-lasting expertise in game development. Being a company that provides unparalleled services powered by 14+ years of experience, we will be happy to bring life to your most challenging projects

Check out our portfolio to get to know about what we can do for you. 

Contact us if you need a team of experienced professionals to develop games.