As an industry segment, game development has already occupied a huge chunk of the international IT market. Technologies continually evolve, bringing new ideas, methodologies, tech stacks, and approaches to developing, ensuring incredible player experience. What will the game development trends be in 2023?
How to leverage their potential and stay abreast of the market? Each modern game development company aims to grab the bite of the global industry’s pie. This post will share helpful insights into the most curious game development trends to mount if you wish to thrive as a studio and product owner. That being said, let’s move on!
Cloud Gaming — Is It the Future?
With high-end technologies like Unreal Engine’s Pixel Streaming or Microsoft Azure, the gaming area has reached a new height, that is, no hardware limitations for the player. Without a doubt, cloud gaming is not a new idea. It was introduced at the E3 exhibition in 2000. However, only today can it be put into practice with all the benefits for players.
According to statistics, the cloud gaming market was forecast to reach more than $8bn by 2025. Therefore, game makers heavily bet on this trend because hardware limitations and legacy PCs or other gaming devices that lack computing power serve as blockers preventing many players all over the world from enjoying world-famous projects.
Metaverse Games
Although still in its infancy, the metaverse phenomenon continues to blow away the minds of game developers and players with the idea of having all the essential aspects at their fingertips. Since the metaverse technology allows studios to develop virtual products that combine social media, marketplaces, VR experiences, gaming, and anything you can imagine, it is no secret that it will become the industry’s future.
Powered by such technologies as IoT, AI, XR, and blockchain, metaverse games will operate as whole entertainment platforms that offer even more value on top of traditional gaming experiences. Just look at Fortnite, a proto-metaverse where Epic Games arrange concerts, unique events, and marketplaces featuring realistic copies of real-world items. The same goes for Roblox — recall the digital-only Gucci bag sold for $4115.
Blockchain Game Development
With blockchain technology on your board, you can implement decentralization features and incorporate them into your game project. This trend will become one of the most evident in years to come, inasmuch as the Web 3.0 paradigm is already on the threshold of the internet, so it is difficult to deny its importance and impact.
Another feature blockchain brings about for gaming is the play-to-earn (P2E) model, which enables players to earn cryptocurrencies as they sell NFTs acquired throughout the gameplay. You can create your own NFT marketplace built into the game, so it is an incredibly helpful technological solution. Blockchain also makes your video games more secure, interoperable, and lucrative, thanks to distributed ledgers.
For instance, companies like Game-Ace (official website — https://game-ace.com/) have already taken advantage of blockchain technology, continuing to ensure more value for their clients with NFT and metaverse games.
Cross-Platform Gaming
Game engines like Unity and Unreal continue to conquer the world with the plurality of in-built features as well as options to tweak, getting a high-quality game in the long run. Cross-platform game development will unquestionably become one of the most promising trends in the future because it is more beneficial to create a single build and optimize it for other gaming platforms instead of launching many separate projects for different devices.
Having multiple teams work exclusively on their own platform, be it mobile or console game development, is not advantageous at all. That is where game engines step in. With these tools as your primary tech stack, your development team can significantly cut costs and reduce time spent on each sprint. After all, you can always outsource game development to professionals that know the industry inside out, which will also help you optimize resources.
Bottom Line
No matter what trend to follow in 2023 or later, you will be able to try them all since each will serve as a milestone indicating the new era of game development. But before you do that, you can always address game development outsourcing studios like Game-Ace that will always lend you a hand in delivering top-notch games to your target audience. With our expertise and experience, you can utilize any trend from the list above.
