It was the growth of the internet and smartphones that increased the gaming industry’s revenue from tens of billions to hundreds of billions.
The viability of subscription and freemium services served as a primer. Microsoft introduced the Xbox Live online gaming service in 2001. It offered gamers access to voice chat and multiplayer matchmaking services in exchange for a monthly subscription fee, and it immediately gained popularity among customers.
With the 2004 release of World of Warcraft on PCs, Blizzard entered the Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) subscription industry, reaching a peak of more than 14 million monthly paying customers.
Businesses saw a future in mobile gaming but we’re having trouble seizing it. With new Game Boy systems, Nintendo maintained its lead on the portable market as Nokia and BlackBerry experimented with adding game apps to mobile phones.
However, it was Apple’s iPhone that made the shift of gaming to a mobile platform inevitable. The company’s introduction of the App Store for its smartphones, closely followed by the launch of Google’s own store for Android devices, opened the door for app developers to produce free, paid, and pay-per-feature games that catered to a broad audience.
Even as they continue to create new consoles, console manufacturers like Microsoft and Sony are developing cloud-based subscription services. In the meantime, Google and Amazon are introducing their own services that are compatible with mobile and other platforms.
Companies are aiming for as much of the market as they can after seeing the success that games like Pokémon Go had on smartphones, earning more than $1 billion in yearly revenue, and Grand Theft Auto V’s record-breaking take of $1 billion in just three days.
Source: WeForumDotOrg