Computer Game Addiction, Is It Real?

It seems that Steven Spielberg very quickly released a film adaptation of Ernest Klein’s novel “The First Player of Fitness” to the world of the future, in which people will emerge from the bleak reality in the virtual universe. Only add to the shareware, or free games, computer games, or smartphone accounts that number about 2.5 billion users. In other words, they are admired by every third inhabitant of the planet. According to some studies, 2017 has become significant for the market of digital games and interactive media, in the future it will flourish even more.

General “game” mobilization

Now the rules in the gaming market dictate the growing popularity of mobile gaming. According to a report by Super Data Research, which studies the gaming industry, users around the world spent $ 14 billion more on mobile games last year than a year earlier, when the segment generated $ 40.6 billion in revenue. Overall, the market has been growing steadily since 2012. At the time, according to research firm Newzoo, the industry’s revenue was estimated at about $ 70.6 billion. The largest share of profits (45%) was generated by console games, 37% by PC games. and only 18% – for mobile games. In three years, the market grew to $ 93.1 billion, and revenues were distributed almost equally (32% from consoles and 34% from PCs and mobile phones). And already in 2017, mobile games became the most profitable, occupying 46% of the market with a volume of $ 121.7 billion. According to the authors of the study, this trend will continue over the next few years, and in 2021 the industry will grow to $ 180.1 billion. mobile ”share will be 59%.

More than 70 companies develop games in Ukraine 40% of game-building companies have offices in Kyiv 76% of Ukrainian developers develop at the expense of their founders 69% of Ukrainian developers create products for the global market 21 companies have appeared on the Ukrainian market in the last one or two years , 14 companies have been operating for more than 10 years Each 5th developer has only one game in its portfolio.

Why and how web games become easy to access for everyone

With a huge variety of gadgets almost every teenager and part of the adult representatives of human beings have a non-stop access to the world of the “game reality”. And the most dangerous part in it is – this new reality attracts yang ming more than a regular off-line world. But why and when games become so easy to access? Here are a few reasons why:

1. Tha gadgets became powerful enough to handle high definition images
2. 3G, 4G, and the 5G connections allows to transfer huge amount of data in a seconds
3. Successful cloud migration strategies allowed companies to store and analyse data faster that ever before
4. Effective software product development process allows companies to deliver features and updates in a week, even working with multinational development teams. 

It should be noted that the popularity of games attracts the attention of not only analysts. For example, in July, the World Health Organization (WHO) for the first time added computer game addiction to the official list of diseases. However, discussions on this topic have been going on for a long time, and meanwhile the gambling industry is increasingly influencing other and not always related areas. First, it is, of course, a competition for professional gamers. According to Super Data Research, last year the profitability of the global e-sports business reached $ 756 million, and this year this figure will exceed $ 1 billion.

Closely related to the proliferation of computer games and the global trend of growing smartphone popularity. According to Deloitte, by 2023, the penetration of these devices among the adult population in developed countries will be 90%. At the same time, this year the world will sell about 4 million smartphones every day, and in five years sales will increase by 19% – up to 5 million per day. However, the increasing share of mobile games encourages electronics manufacturers to develop new models specifically for the needs of gamers. For example, at the end of last year, the American manufacturer of gaming equipment Razer launched the gaming smartphone Razer Phone. Xiaomi, Nubia and Asus have since announced the development and release of such smartphones. And a little later, the intention to create a mobile device for games was announced in Huawei.

By the way, the influence of the gaming industry is felt by telecom operators. According to Vodafone Ukraine, due to the growing popularity of mobile gaming, the company’s analysts have singled out gaming traffic in a separate segment. It is estimated that only since the launch of 4G coverage, the increase in game traffic was 50%, and the most popular among users were the games Clash Royale and Pokemon Go. At the same time, within a few months, Vodafone’s competitor Lifecell Ukraine should be able to identify and track different types of traffic.