Yorkshire Gaming Festival Shines Light on the Future

Beverley gaming fans returning from the Yorkshire Games Festival in Bradford this week may recognise themselves in figures released pertaining to the performance of the gaming industry.

 

The great and good of the country’s gaming industry descended on West Yorkshire to discuss matters including the future of gaming, and students of nearby Hull University’s nationally-renowned Computer Science courses were offered the opportunity to absorb the expertise of iconic developers from around the UK.

Two separate workshops showcased Yorkshire’s huge influence on the worldwide gaming industry during the five-day exhibition, with companies such as Wakefield’s Team 17 and Huddersfield’s Red Kite in the limelight. Visitors and professionals alike were able to try out forthcoming games for themselves and network amongst some of the most revered names in game development.

“National Media Museum” by Dupont Circle (CC BY-SA 2.5)

One topic of discussion during the week was the future of gaming, where recently-released statistics point to an onward curve of change in the trends and preferences of the industry’s consumers.

In the UK alone there are 32.4m gamers, who combine to make up the fourth-largest gaming market in the world, behind Japan, Korea and USA. The UK’s gaming industry is currently worth a whopping £4.33bn a year, a figure that increases year-on-year, although the makeup of this industry is ever-changing in accordance with the evolving demands of the consumers.

Mobile gaming is one sector that has seen a huge increase in usage and revenue in recent years, for example, with reports suggesting a 541% increase inside five years. Indeed, UK gaming fans spent a touch under a billion pounds (£995.1m) on mobile gaming goods and services last year, a 16.9% increase on 2015.

Mobile gaming has now in fact overtaken desktop and console gaming as the world’s most profitable medium, a figure conflicting with UK figures, which still put consoles ahead with £1.22bn of the market, an 11.1% year-on-year increase. The 2016 release of highly-rated titles such as Super Tribes and Mimpi Dreams has contributed to this, of course, along with the continued integration of games on social media sites such as Facebook.

The incredible advance in hardware technology and the increased accessibility of internet access has no doubt played a big hand in the rise of mobile gaming. These advances have revolutionised a number of industries, perhaps none more so than the £13.6bn gambling industry, with a third of all its revenue now taken from online gambling.

This figure is split between desktop and mobile gaming, of course, with gambling providers offering both mobile and app services, indeed, these numbers are in no small part due to the consumer’s ability to access iGaming platforms in the palm of their hand.

Source: Pixabay

The changing behaviours of this booming industry is often an easy win for game developers, many of whom have been able to produce a huge turnover of software for gambling providers. A glance at the 888casino and 32Red mobile casino apps reveal that they are typically smart, simple and compact, taking up little device storage, and both are rated at four stars. What’s even more noticeable is the number of gambling apps in total.

One figure that will concern Computer Science students in the region is the fact that the mobile industry’s gain has been partly at the expense of the console industry, which saw a 2.5% dip in 2016. Console hardware sales were down over a quarter to £507.5m. Despite this, experts have forecast a rebound year in 2017, underpinned by the release of the Nintendo Switch in March, which was released to generally positive reviews. Whether these reviews translate into real-term financial improvements for the sector remains to be seen.

The upward curve in the number of gamers playing eSports is one that the desktop gaming industry is hoping will lead to a rise in fortunes. Global PC gaming revenue enjoyed steady growth between 2012 and 2015, and although this figure dipped by 2% last year, the release of titles such as Dota 2 and CS:GO have gifted the likes of Intel and Nvidia record second-quarter revenue figures for 2017. Indeed, the cross-market influence of gambling providers is set to make itself felt here, also, with brands such as 32Red and Pinnacle having dipped their toe into eSports in recent months.

With technology moving on at an incredible rate and whatever the short-term fortunes of the gaming industry, it might well be near-impossible for the experts present at the Yorkshire Games Festival to predict the future of gaming in 2018 and beyond. What is for sure is that hordes of talented Hull University students primed and ready to join the industry will play a part in driving the way.

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