The Evolution Of Game Developers

Mobile is becoming the most important platform to publish games.

Majority of game developers are creating free-to-play games.

Monetization of each game comes from advertisements or in-game purchases such as skins, boosters or premium products.

It also seems standard to build games across all platforms (consoles, mobile, TV and VR).

Creating a competitive multiplayer ecosystem or offering prizes are a must to drive engagement.

It seems more and more developers are trying to build communities around their game through any means possible, chat, in-person meetups, leagues and more.

All developers must cater to influencers to attract viewers and gamers.

Building your own unique IP or using an existing valuable IP is key to building a successful game.

Audio: Developers like Drivetime or Sensible Object are allowing users to play audio trivia games from Alexa or while driving a car.

Smart Watches: Everywear Games and Pocket Gems are creating games for both android and apple smart watches.

Chat Applications: Knock Knock has been building games in Facebook messenger. Neptune has been working with Kakao. Tencent’s Mini Program has sparked a number of games over WeChat. Mojiworks is building games for both Messenger and WeChat. This looks like an an exciting category for short casual game play, an area telecoms or CPaaS solutions should pay attention to.

Internet of Things: It seems more often traditional board games or toys are merging with video games. Workinman Interactive is making interactive toys for brands like Disney, Nickelodeon, Atari and Fisher-Price. Mighty Bear Games created a heart rate monitor that controls game difficulty. Sensible Object created a unique hardware game where Jenga meets pokemon.

Television: Nazara has also forged an alliance with Amazon to provide localized Indian gaming experience on Fire TV. It seems TV’s are becoming an important platform for more publishers outside mobile and PC. Will this hinder console growth?

VR/AR: Niantic, Leaftail Labs, Snatch, Next Games, Placeholder and Shifu are all primarily using mobile phones to create AR experiences that are social, interactive and collaborative. VR is also a platform of choice for developers to expand their existing IP. Resolution Games, as an example, brought Angry Birds to VR. Others are taking a step further to enhance the gaming experiences within AR/VR. Subdream is building their own hardware that can be used in VR games. Meleap has gone as far as creating their own arena for AR gameplay.

Theme Parks: Immersive Game Labs and Survios built an indoor video game theme park where people can play their games. VR/AR indoor theme parks have been a trend for awhile, but the economics of managing them are a bit shaky.

Game Engines To Publisher: Companies like Epic Games Unreal Engine or Niantic Real World Platform are examples of developers building successful games and sharing their platform with other developers. Developers like The Ready Games will publish games built using their developer platform, the key benefit is users don’t have to know any code to build games. Workinman Interactive offers a IoT hardware simulators.

Internal Game Engine: Developers like Super Evil Megacorp and Mojiworks created their own game engine to power their mobile and chat games with no intention to license it. This route seems to give studios more freedom over their games performance and how quickly games can be developed. Dapper Labs takes a slightly different approach by allowing developers to use their code to create games within their gaming ecosystem. The purpose is to create more mini-games around Dapper Labs branded games. FRVR’s technology stack helps them serve quality games in less than a second on almost any mobile phone.

Gaming Tools: Many developers are also licensing tools they use to improve the performance, distribution or engagement of their own games. Teatime Games offers broadcasting and video chat within games. Reload Games offers in-game music studio and tools to accelerate game downloads. Midas Touch creates 2D animation software.

Halfbrick Studios worked with Mech Mocha to localize and relaunch their games in India.

Workinman collaborated with Addicting Games to create an intense combat game to reflect the spirit of the series, Man at Arms.

Digit Game Studio collaborated with Scopely to build Hollywood IP, Star Trek Fleet Command.

Media Icons To Games: Almost any popular media icon from television, movies or actors, has been or will be built into a game. Examples include Niantic using Harry Potter; Jam City using Family Guy and Marvel; Second Dinner also using Marvel; Scopely using Walking Dead and Wheel of Fortune; nWay with Power Rangers; MZ Games using Final Fantasy; Moonfrog Labs using India’s highest grossing film and most famous actors; Funtactix creates games based on blockbuster films. Neptune is partnering with messaging platform Kakao and using their characters to build games. HQ Trivia takes a different approach by inviting celebrities like The Rock, Robert De Niro, Gordon Ramsay, Neil Patrick Harris, and Alicia Silverstone to drop into their game. A really unique example of building games off of popular media is Hypixel. They started by producing their own funny youtube videos. This Youtube channel garnered enough attention and following to help them build their own Minecraft mini-games based off their youtube videos.

Games To Media: To further build off of the existing IP of a game, developers are creating media around their game. It can be as simple, like Kixeye creating videos and blogs on how to beat their games. Or it can go as far as Niantic, who is creating a tv show around their game Ingress. Telltale releases interactive episodic content on a monthly schedule about their games. Youxigu participated in the investment in the production of two cinema films and action type movies. Moshi Monster went as for a creating books, magazines, toys, trading cards, music albums, a movie and a dog mat.

Brands To Games: Developers are also partnering with iconic brands to build games. As an example, Playstudios partnered with casinos in Vegas to offer rewards. The Ready Games works with top brands to build custom game experiences. Animoca Brands built games for Mattel. 704Games created six games all about NASCAR.

Games To Games: It’s common to see developers revamping existing popular board/arcade games. Mech Mocha built a game about a popular local Indian board game called Ludo. Subdream built a VR game based on the popular 1980’s arcade game Galaga. Jackpocket helps you play state lottery games on your phone. Scopely built games for Yahtzee. SuperSolid is building off of Sims. The list goes on.

Dapper Labs opened up their code to allow developers to build games off their game IP.

Epic Games and Funcom gives out mods so gamers can create their own worlds within popular games.

Mythical Games will focus its next game on user generated content where players and influencers can trade the digital assets they created.

Klang Games allows players to create and manage multiple characters. The characters live on even when the player is logged off.

Pocket Gems allows users to create their own storyline within the game to share with other players.

IMVU created their own fashion blog for in-game styles created by players. Their avatars can be named top model and recognized on the game banner.

Niantic creates events and local meetups for their AR gamers. Some of these meetups are a core part of gameplay. In addition, they hold contests for developers.

In Tencent’s annual report, they mentioned they are able to increase user engagement through esports tournaments and live streaming events.

Nazara Technologies secured multi-year exclusive licensing rights for the ESL to organise and operate ESL competitions in India.

Funplus and Millennial Esports host esports tournament and leagues. Millennial Esports actually has their own gaming arena in Las Vegas.

Games like The Ready Games and HQ Trivia host competitions for prizes in-game daily.

Mech Mocha is focused on building social components to their games. Their DAU spend on average 25 minutes per day on their in-game voice chat.

Teatime Games provides live video for their face to face racing battle games.

Funplus mobile app enables users to stream their game play and interact with their audience.

Flowplay created a virtual world that allows players to interact and play games together.

Geographic: Mech Mocha feels there is a gap in location specific games. They are focused on winning small regions within India. Games2Win also claims to focus on creating localized content.

Gender: Singularity 6’s upcoming game hopes women will be a major portion of their audience. Nix Hydra is focused on creating women oriented games. Gram Games actually created a movement called Project 22% that caters to women.

Competitive: Gamelynx is creating team-based competitive games on mobile, so esports can become more accessible and global.

Professional: Level Ex creates video games for doctors that capture the challenges of practicing medicine. Radd3 virtual reality training system helps football players mentally prepare for upcoming games by visualizing plays. It also allows football players to practice without the risk of injury.

Funcom pre-made bundles exclusive for influencers to help them create better content for their audience.

Epic Games Support-A-Creator program enables creators to earn money from Fortnite and other games in the Epic games store.

Seriously found success by developing a series of campaigns with YouTube influencers around charity initiatives and timed them to coincide with game updates.

Proletariat builds full live stream integrations and tools that allow viewers to interact with their favorite broadcasters within their games.

Acquiring Portfolio Growth: Many successful game developers start acquiring or investing other studios for growth, namely Jam City, Scopely and Tencent.

Developer To Publisher: Many developers use their game engines they’ve created or reach to build their publishing portfolio. As an example, Epic Games leverages their gaming engine as a means to grow as a publisher. Paradox Interactive is also creating a digital distribution platform. Rumble Games offers tools for developers to publish and operate in game service.

Developer To Service Provider: Workinman Interactive creates design, IoT toys, art, exhibits and more services for brands looking to develop games. ZGames offers game design document development, art creation, prototyping and audience research to app store release and post-release analytics-powered tuning and server support. Virtuos also offers extended gaming services and training for gaming artists.

Developer To Products: Mind Candy build a successful IP that expanded into books, pet products, apps for pets, feeding mats, trading cards, magazines, toys, music albums and a movie.