Since the release of the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game machine, in 1972, the iGaming business has radically transformed. After barely three years on the market, the Magnavox Odyssey was withdrawn because it was too innovative for the ordinary consumer. Still, it played a major role in determining the future.

Fifty years later, the iGaming industry has progressed through eight generations of consoles, including the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and has amassed a ludicrous 2.7 billion users globally. 

The value of the global gaming market was estimated at over $300 billion. When it comes to an industry as massive as video games, everyone from programmers and publishers to makers of gaming systems and accessories knows how important it is to set new standards. Some trends in the business world are short-lived, while others shake things up to the point that they’re considered standard practice.

Some of the most recent changes to https://outplayed.com/what-is-matched-betting site and other iGaming business platforms are as follows:

Streaming

Video and streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and Discord have significantly impacted the game business. Others would even argue that the peak of online video game streaming popularity is happening right now. 

A recent revenue and usage research of Twitch indicated that the platform’s highest concurrent viewership occurred in June 2020, with 6.5 million users.

The iGaming businesses like live casino, table games, and casino slots at LeoVegas were impacted in numerous ways by the rise of streaming, including the following:

Referral marketing

Traditionally, AAA publishers have spent millions of dollars advertising their games. With streaming, marketing expenses can be reduced, allowing smaller studios to compete with those of more established ones. For instance, games like Rocket League and Among Us didn’t have a massive marketing budget, but they still managed to take the industry by storm thanks to a few prominent streamers who played those games live in front of millions of viewers.

Shifted industry development

The emergence of streaming has influenced game creation in new ways. They’d look at their game and decide if it was worth being streamed. Some programmers even go so far as to include Twitch-specific gameplay elements. It means everyone watching a webcast can influence the outcome.

Stream marketing

Initially, businesses were afraid to invest in digital marketing. The business world, however, immediately saw an opportunity in this. To attract streamers to play their games, publishers would form partnerships with them. In essence, this was the business world’s answer to influencer marketing. The high ROI offered by conventional marketing methods prompted its rapid adoption.

The proliferation of streaming services impacted every part of the industry, from programmers to content producers. Experts found that the top 10 gaming channels on YouTube have 405 million followers, making video game streaming one of the platform’s most popular features.

Microtransactions

During the sixth and seventh generations of consoles, major video game creators made games with the same production value as Hollywood blockbusters. It took a long time for games to reach completion due to the extensive time spent on programming, testing, and fixing bugs. The introduction of downloadable content (DLC) after a game’s initial release was a game-changer for the industry. DLC merely ushered in a new monetization method, commonly called microtransactions.

Already commonplace, microtransactions are a form of in-game commerce in which players pay a little fee to acquire digital content. Originating in F2P titles, microtransactions have also found success in premium titles.

In “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,” published by Bethesda in 2006, the first in-game microtransaction occurred when players could purchase horse armor for $2.50. Although player reception was mixed, it was the game’s ninth-best-selling downloadable content pack on average. Even after more than two years since the product’s initial distribution, it was still being purchased in large quantities.

Due to the industry’s staggering profits from free-to-play games, microtransactions are here to stay.

eSports

The earliest examples of competitive gaming date back to the 1970s. However, the advent of LAN parties in the late 1990s and early 2000s marked the beginning of the competitive gaming scene as we know it today. Due to the high cost and limited availability of broadband internet around that period, private LAN parties were increasingly popular.

LAN parties and competitive gaming emerged when consoles replaced personal computers as the primary gaming platform. LAN parties are no longer necessary but a way to get together with friends to play games in one location, as connecting systems through ethernet cables has become obsolete.

In the late 1990s, the Asian market, and South Korea in particular, played a significant role in propelling the development of modern competitive gaming. However, it wasn’t until ESPN’s reality show Madden Nation in the early 2000s that competitive video gaming even entered the mainstream consciousness of the public.

Competitive gaming was still considered a sideline rather than a commercial disruptor. The advent of Major League Gaming (MLG) Gamebattles, however, would soon alter that.

Gamebattles provided a global platform for players to prove their mettle against one another and compete for prize pools.

In the early 2010s, however, the esports scene experienced explosive growth. The industry has to change or perish. In 2012, for instance, Activision and developer Treyarch produced “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” which catered heavily to the esports audience. They included “CODcasting,” an in-game streaming tool, and a competitive gameplay mode.

At this point, it would have been unusual for anyone in the game industry to overlook this development. The prize pools increased in value, and the number of viewers grew rapidly. In 2023, the esports sector in the United States is expected to be worth over $515 million, according to one estimate.