Video Game Design Trends
Video games have seen many evaluations throughout the years past. Consumer demands changed the courses during these periods. Largest Video Game design companies created certain Video Game Design Trends while they try to be the next innovative gaming brand. Following the trends allows companies to make massive revenues. So, you see many large companies jump in when a new video game design trend comes out.
Let’s have a look at the recent trends in video game design business.
Mobile Games
Mobile gaming is one of the largest members of recent video game trends. Many Video game design trends occurred with the rise of mobile gaming in the business. Mobile platforms attracted many clients and publishers by being accessible to large numbers and practically portable.
Although the term “mobile gaming” includes handheld game consoles like GameBoys, today this term is associated with games on mobile phones. Originated with legendary small games like Snake, games on mobile phones bloomed with the widespread use of smartphones which allowed users to install new games.
Today mobile gaming is almost as big as other gaming platforms. Some of the biggest video game design companies work primarily on mobile games. And, most people with a smartphone play some casual games, even the ones that don’t play video games on other platforms.
Online Games
Another huge video game design trend has come with broadband internet becoming widespread for gamers. Video games with online capabilities became more and more popular every year. Although technically, the term “Online game” can be used for many genres such as Multiplayer Player-versus-player games too, typically it refers to MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) genre.
During the rise of social networking and the open world concept in video game design, online games have become a huge video game design trend. Since then, many video games in this genre were released. These video games where you can travel anywhere you want in a virtual world with your friends and do certain quests to obtain rewards, attract many players around the world. Numerous influential brands created their own games to follow this video game design trend. Some video game titles such as World of Warcraft, GuiltWars, EverQuest managed to reach a vast player base.
Survival Games
As a subgenre of action video games, Survival games typically feature an open world where players try to stay alive while gathering resources, crafting items, searching for food and fighting hostile environments. These mechanics can include player-versus-player mechanics in online titles. Although these games are commonly lack of a solid plot and end-point, many players enjoy the challenging mechanics this video game design trend offers.
Even though the genre was around since the early 1990s, one of the biggest hits that made survival genre so popular was Minecraft. With the other hit titles in the genre such as DayZ, survival games became parallel with the popularity of zombie culture in the following years.
After companies notice the interest in the market, survival games became a video game design trend quickly. For a long time, the video game market flooded with survival games.
Battle Royale Games
Following the video game design trend of survival games, some of the titles in the genre in the genre started to include side game modes to attract more players. The most popular alternative mode among them was “Battle Royale”. This video game design trend offers a survival style open world where every player starts to gather resources at the same time and fight against others to be the last player left alive in a certain time frame.
Although the first popular examples of this video game design trend were started with servers plug-ins on Minecraft and alternative modes in zombie survival games, Battle Royale Games became a huge video game design trend after the release of “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds”, a standalone game for the genre. Biggest companies in the video game business followed the trend. Some examples like “Fortnite Battle Royale” made hundreds of million dollars in their first year thanks to this video game design trend.
Virtual Reality Games
After Oculus Rift started the hype in virtual reality again, many companies released their VR headset. Many VR game releases, same made in partnerships with the VR headset manufacturers, followed the hype. Although large companies did leave the first years of the video game design trend filled by indie developers, eventually all of the big video game companies joined the party. Although today the technology still can be considered quite young, all of the biggest franchises have VR titles. With a clear interest from the customers, this video game design trend is gaining the boost.
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