The gaming sector has become the most successful and one of the most profitable and popular industries on a global scale. Taking into account its humble beginnings with simple games in 1958 like Tennis for Two to the huge success of game consoles, video games, and even VR games today.
So, it’s safe to say that gaming has evolved quite a bit, but it has also been shaped by the latest technological and digital trends. This is why social gaming is actually a popular aspect of the gaming sector right now. Without innovations like social media networks, social gaming would not have been part of the gaming sector.
But, due to the rise of social media sites like Facebook, simple social games forged connections between users and gained traction in recent years. In this article, we will take a look at social gaming and its roots and recent changes.
What Are Social Games
Social games became popular with the rise of popularity of social media platforms and lockdowns encouraging people to play more games online. The social element is essential for the success of the game, which actually relies on most cases of interaction between the users on the specific social media platform.
Social games are based on multiplayer gameplay as they require communication and teamwork from the gamers in most cases. The predecessor to the popular social games were browser games. However, the development of social games like Farmville, Happy Far, and Green Patch on Facebook has propelled the evolution of social gaming.
Another distinctive trait of social games is the engagement of the participants. They are motivated to reach higher levels by collecting points, collaborating with other gamers, or achieving higher status on the leader board.
With the fast popularity of mobile games for smartphones, social games have become even more popular and actually attracted a new audience of mobile users. Actually, many game developers incorporated social elements in their games from a variety of genres, including Minecraft, Call of Duty, Sims, Animal Crossing, Pokémon GO, and many more.
Rise of Social Gaming
Social gaming has become popular due to the introduction of mobile games on the market. This has opened a lot of opportunities for social games in general as they became more interesting and also offered more opportunities for developers to create games as a social component for mobile devices.
So, beyond the games where users were required to plant crops or watch animals, there were many other options available, including online casino games. Actually, the rise of mobile gaming promoted sweepstakes casino apps where users could use sweepstakes coins in order to play virtual casino games like poker, for example. However, due to the popularity of online casinos in general as well as the social casino games, there are created many options for playing real money sweepstake casino apps.
Actually, the popularity of social gaming has also prompted many video game developers to create games that have a social component that allows users to connect with each other or play as a team.
Social Gaming Market
As social gaming became a favorite pastime for a lot of users and, since its initial development in late 2010, has become a sector worth billions of dollars. Actually, the social gaming market’s revenue grew from around $2.1 billion in 2010 to $4.8 billion in 2016. It was worth around $17.40 billion in 2019, and it is expected to reach a worth of $57.44 billion by 2027.
In the future, we will expect even virtual reality games to incorporate this social factor. One example would be the latest project of Facebook in a VR environment which relies on the VR communication of other participants, while there are many other interactive VR games on the market that are based on the same principles.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, the gaming sector, in general, has shown a lot of progress, with the emergence of new genres, subgenres, and a huge audience of gamers in 2022, over 2 billion gamers worldwide, to be exact. Social gaming is one aspect of the gaming market which has gained traction in recent years because it created a community around social games and it provides an incentive for users to connect with each other and play online.
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