The world has had a major shift taking place with digitisation and its continuous adoption in our daily lives, ever since the internet made entry into our lives.
With the technological developments and advancements, we all have started relying on the internet, either for work, communication or entertainment. With social media and online shopping, internet and virtual conversations have only increased by leaps and bounds. Having said that, the outbreak of coronavirus impacted the digital world the most and took all of us online to complete our daily tasks or entertain ourselves. Every one of us remembers scrolling down our Instagram stories, zoom meetings or playing Ludo King with our friends and family.
When it comes to online entertainment, we all can recall all those games such as Ludo, Snakes & Ladder, etc that rescued us from boredom during the time of national lockdown amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Gaming has always been a part of everyone’s childhood. The mobile gaming industry has evolved over the years because of better internet connectivity and availability of smartphones. Games are now developed not only for entertainment purposes, but many people are taking it as their career option and also a way for skill development, educational and social purposes.
India is on the path to become a gaming superpower as the rising internet connectivity, increasing adoption of smartphones, and the advent of high bandwidth network connectivity, such as 5G, have further increased the demand of the gaming market across the globe. According to reports, the gaming market was valued at USD 198.40 billion in 2021, and it is expected to reach a value of USD 339.95 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 8.94% over the years 2022-2027.
With the rapid technological advancements in the gaming industry, games have turned to be more realistic with the help of three-dimensional visuals and effects. The companies in the online gaming industry are also enhancing the way games can be created and improved to provide the best gaming experience to their users.
Moving forward, virtual reality is a concept that has created a major buzz in the market in recent times. One of the most prominent industries that soaked in everything virtual reality could offer is the gaming world. And when it comes to virtual reality, we can’t miss considering the game changer for the industry i.e Metaverse.
Metaverse is soaring to new heights and can be a game changer for the online gaming industry. It’s now becoming a mainstream technology and is definitely the next big thing that will change the face of the digital world. By creating an immersive visual experience, it has given a whole new realistic experience to the gaming world.
The handshake that metaverse and the gaming industry have made has helped the entire gaming world to engage gamers in ways that were never thought to be possible in the gaming world previously. The gamers can now have an immersive experience. To put it in a simpler way, metaverse compliments technologies like AR and VR to create a more organic experience, where users can get a lifetime experience, like how they feel in the real world.
Mihir Sanchala, Vice President – Technology, PlayerzPot, says: “Metaverse is going to revolutionise the online gaming industry and is expected to provide a virtual world experience to the gamers. It will draw on all the feelings and emotions of real-time experience and is also rewarding with its play-to-earn concept, allowing players to win virtual gaming items, trade them and earn physical money. While talking about the Metaverse, we also can’t ignore considering NFTs as they will help in representing the ownership of digital and physical assets on the blockchain”.
The technological development and growth of the online gaming world into this highly immersive visual experience is owing to the Metaverse. Not only it has helped transform the industry but has also helped it to gain major user’s traction because of the new features the gaming world can now introduce to their customers using the metaverse offerings. One of the most important traits that sets Metaverse apart is that it is inherently social. Multi-player gaming will take on an additional dimension as players will be able to invite their friends or players from the real world, interact with gamers from all over the globe, and build relationships.
“Technology & innovation have changed the way we work and communicate. It has also revolutionised business practices and created opportunities for newer business models to evolve. Online gaming is one of the few industries that has evolved from a traditional hardware inbuilt video game to an online gaming platform. Currently, with live streaming of online games, the industry is emerging at a faster pace like never before and attracting a global audience.
The electronic gaming industry is predicted to further evolve with Metaverse and it will create an experience that was only seen in Sci-fi movies. By infusing Metaverse into the online gaming industry, we will witness a virtual experiential engagement and interaction between players. It will help the online gaming platforms to build a reality like experience and attract more audience. The world is now constantly moving towards the digital world and Esports is also not leaving any stone unturned in that aspect”, said Ishan Verma, Founder and CEO, Chemin eSports.
In Metaverse, gamers can create their own content, build sub-games within a game, and so on. They can treat the gaming environment as a platform – like space if they want to work on some other activities simultaneously.
Pankaj Agarwal is one of the online gamers who started gaming online as a mode of entertainment but later chose it as a profession. He also told the platform that “Gaming industry is booming and is not at all expected to stop in any way. Not only for entertainment, younger generation is also picking this industry as a career option. I am very much positive with the upcoming growth of the industry and Metaverse is definitely going to push further because along with virtual experience, it also provides flexibility where users can make an addition to the virtual world.”
While Metaverse is still in a nascent stage, many companies have already launched next-generation gaming platforms. Decentraland and Sandbox, both are examples of futuristic projects, and big tech giants such as Microsoft and Facebook are also coming with their Metaverse projects. So, we are expecting to experience a much-enhanced version of Metaverse in future.
“As one of the leading fantasy gaming platforms, we are also planning to begin work on the Metaverse aspects in our technology roadmap and exploring it further, with respect to creating Unique Selling Propositions (USP), MVP (Minimum Viable Product) building, highly scalable tech architecture designs, market roll out strategy and customer engagement strategy”, says Mr. Sanchala.