What are the big trends in the game industry in the 2014?

The games industry of the 2014 has had a lot of big events, and not only people with different opinions are discussing each other's views, many of the changes that have taken place this year have had a big impact on the gaming industry, from game sales to game development and player consumption. But the changes will not stop, and in 2014 these trends in the gaming industry will have an impact on game development and the entire gaming industry in the coming years.

So what are the big trends in the 2014 gaming industry?

1. Large Mergers and acquisitions

It can be said that the mega-deals of the 2014 were so large that we saw a large number of companies being bought and purchased with 1 billion of billions of dollars.

In March 2014, Facebook acquired the virtual display equipment company Oculus VR, created by Palmer Lachi (Palmer luckey), a price of 2 billion dollars, and the deal was very surprising to most people in the industry, No one expected Facebook to be so generous in betting on virtual reality platforms.

Then, in August this year, another company that hardly had much to do with the game industry decided to enter the gaming industry, and the US and European power giant Amazon announced the acquisition of the game Live website Twitch, which was $970 million trillion.

In fact, even this year only the two transactions, then the game industry is enough to attract attention, but then Microsoft made a larger acquisition, the Xbox manufacturer for 2.5 billion of dollars to buy the top game, "My World" developers, the Swedish game studio Mojang.

There is no mention of a lot of global deals: China's online gaming giant has privatized 3 billion of billions of dollars, and has received 1.6 billion of billions of dollars from its chairman and 2 private equity companies; social gaming company Funplus (fun) To 960 million of dollars in the price of its most popular games IP sold to Shanghai ZJY Holdings.

The accumulation of these transactions, the 2014 years ago, the three-quarter game industry acquisition amount reached 2013 annual acquisition of twice times. These mergers and acquisitions have amply demonstrated the concerns of non gaming companies about the gaming industry and the future of technology. We have long known that games can promote technological progress, which is also true in other industries. Now, it seems that big companies such as Amazon and Facebook are investing huge sums of money, and that game developers and their innovations and ideas will continue to drive progress in the overall technology industry.

2. Steam Shop Open

Valve software has been gradually opening up steam stores, so that more developers can take advantage of the platform, and the steam platform has more than 100 million registered users. But 2014 was the year when the steam platform was truly open. As valve lowered the steam threshold, a large number of games poured into the steam store, and according to foreign media statistics, by the middle of May this year, the steam platform released more games than the whole of 2013.

Valve's decision to loosen the entry threshold means more developers can release games on the platform, but it also means that developers need to face more and more competition.

Fortunately, with the further opening of the Steam store, valve subsequently introduced the steam exposure tool, including new data algorithms and user usage tracking, recommending different games for different users, and the company also introduced steam curators features.

The issue of exposure has been around for a long time and may still be in the future for many years to come. Although services such as steam discovery are absolutely welcome by developers, for game developers, these stores can only serve as a distribution channel and must not ignore marketing tools. Developers still need to work very marketing their games, so the trend will be more challenging in 2015 years.

3. Lower game Prices

Everyone likes to buy inexpensive goods, and the 2014 game price drop is unprecedented, many games have dropped to free. For example, in the PlayStation Plus platform, the 50-dollar annual fee can be downloaded in 3 platforms free of a large number of games, without paying additional costs; Xbox games also have a gold business; The steam platform also has a lot of discounts, a lot of it will fall to a few dollars, players can buy promotional packages, and a lot of free games in the hands of the platform, which is commonplace in 2014.

Although these new models are of great importance, they also reduce the price of the game, both large companies and small teams should pay attention to this. The price of the game is particularly pressing this year, as the consumer survey released by game retailer GameStop shows that players expect 3A games to be downloaded at $35 trillion, in fact, the average consumption of these players is only 22 dollars.

This ' competing ' type of price war has been hotly discussed for several years, especially in the field of hand travel, free download + micro-trading mode of the game dominated the income list, 5 of dollars has become a key pricing point for hand tour. In 2014, letting players feel that your game is worth paying for downloads requires more input, which is no longer so easy in all game markets.

4. Maturity of Kickstarter financing

In 2012, we noticed that double fine opened the door to the success of the game, and since then, many games have been on the Kickstarter platform, some have been very successful, and many have failed because of funding goals. Early this year, ICO team released a 2014 first half of the Kickstarter project report, the data show that the first half of the 2014 game project in the Kickstarter fund-raising amount reached 13.5 million U.S. dollars, and 2013 in the first half of the 58 million U.S. dollars, a lot of difference, Although there are still six months of data has not yet been counted, but it is certain that this year's public financing will never exceed last year.

As the company's Thomas Bigaux said, Kickstarter's honeymoon period has passed. 2 years after the double fine fundraising, developers need an updated business model, a model that gives developers more creative freedom, a program that allows players to create more relationships with these projects, so that supporters are willing to pay for them. Early adopters have caused a lot of followers to jump on the ' express ', and now it's clear that the train is slowing down.

The reason why the heat is cold is that Kickstarter is essentially just an old bottle of new wine, at best it's just an I-fundraising model (still good for some small teams). In addition, many of the big projects have been Kickstarter, and potential supporters have become more cautious about the pattern because there are a lot of Kickstarter projects that have not been launched as scheduled.

Perhaps more importantly, the steam platform's early access is also taking off, in which players can participate in the development of the game, and developers can get very important community feedback and have a good relationship with the players and earn revenue from the game.

Kickstarter will not die, and the public is still one of the alternative sources of funding for many developers (such as Chris Roberts ' Star Citizen, which has raised more than $66 million trillion). What we are seeing now is that the public-chip model has matured, which means that developers should be prepared for a few years before they are raised, rather than having a game idea.

5. Game video The rise of the anchor

YouTube Gaming video has been around for a long time, I believe many people have seen the game live, but 2014 is different, game developers are finally aware of YouTube's personalized media role, rather than simple game video a role.

While some say YouTube is replacing traditional media, the competition in this area is already very intense because many companies are turning their attention to the same user base, which is gamers. Whether or not YouTube can replace traditional media or other areas, the reality is that no one is really ' safe ' in gaming media, but YouTube's model has brought about rapid change.

It is important for developers and distributors to have a good relationship with YouTube video anchors, such as paying an anchor to live your game, or opening a live channel on YouTube, which can be a good publicity function. YouTube anchors, like the traditional media, are a great choice for the company to do PR and marketing, whether you're a big business or a small team. Game video anchors will continue to exist and have a positive meaning for developers, players and the media sector.