The Game Developers Conference is just around the corner, and if you read any of our recent series of blog posts about online gaming, you’ll know that we keenly follow all the latest developments.
For this reason, we’re full of speculation as to what the year will hold for the industry, but here’s our take on it:
One of our major predictions is that we’ll see an increase in the amount of cross- platform gaming. Alongside dedicated game platforms such as the Xbox360 and PlayStation 3, game developers are now making more and more games accessible from alternative platforms including smartphones, tablets and even televisions. You can expect to have the opportunity to purchase games through an online subscription service which will enable you to download the game to your television and control gameplay via a tablet. This means that online gaming will become accessible to many more users – those that do not own a traditional, dedicated games platform, for instance.
We’ll also see an increase in the number of gamers using social networking alongside gameplay. This varies from linking your latest stats to your status update, right through to games such as EA’s The Sims, which is enjoying huge success as The Sims Social on Facebook.
For gamers then, online gaming will be all about sharing – whether it’s with your friends and family or with strangers from across the globe. There’ll be more channels available through which to play, more games to participate in, and more ways of talking about it with other gamers.
As discussed in one of our previous posts, it becomes more important than ever for online games to have a reliable hosting provider. Downtime caused by latency translates into loss of revenue for the gaming industry and can have a huge impact on the loyalty of gamers themselves. What’s more, with social media platforms becoming increasingly integrated with online gaming, both good and bad word of mouth can spread even faster. It’s a great channel for direct feedback, but one that increases the need for a trusted and responsive hosting provider.
If you have any questions about these gaming developments, or their impact on hosting provision, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can contact us via our website, or email Larry Malik and Paul Grimwood at sales@leaseweb.com. Paul will also be attending Game Developers Conference next week in San Francisco if you would like to discuss these trends with him personally.
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March 12, 2012 at 20:47I have no problems with my gaming site with LeaseWeb.