Alex Karetin: “Gaming has rapidly become a lifestyle”

It’s no surprise that gamification has become an essential part of our everyday lives. Games are all around us now, and they have been taking root since the beginning of the pandemic. Taking the opportunity, Alex Karetin, Overgear’s managing partner, has shared today’s key trends in the gaming industry.

 

Communication through gaming

It seems that the pandemic made us play more games: people became more involved in gaming due to the time lockdown has freed up. Back then, we had lots of things to do that involved communicating with other people, like going to a bar, attending different kinds of events, etc. Now there’s an obvious lack of such opportunities. We all hope COVID-19 restrictions won’t last forever but people do need some leisure in their lives — not tomorrow, but right now.

This is why we became creative in coming up with what to do, although playing online games might be the first thing to cross your mind when you’re locked up. Eventually, even those who thought of gaming as a 10-year-old boys’ amusement started to get interested. In a sense, it was their involuntary test drive, and lots of them decided to stick around. This made game developers think of ways to keep their clients concerned, and as a result, they started releasing games that were iconic decades ago — to remind people of how it was when they were ten.

In terms of socialisation, gaming has gone beyond playing games. There’s already a vast amount of online that complement and expand the gaming industry products. For instance, companies developing voice and text-based communication have become more adaptive to online games. Let’s also not forget about streaming services by Google and Microsoft (the latter was never released), as well as YouTube Gaming and Twitch, one of the most popular services of that kind. In fact, watching and discussing streams on Twitch in a way replaced the habit of going to bars to talk to people — it’s almost the same but you don’t need to go out.

Gaming allows us to overcome communication problems and dramatically expand our social circle. When it comes to online communication, people don’t really care about who you are and how you look, and this is already helpful. Being honest and straightforward is the new gold, and the only thing that matters is whether you are comfortable to play with. Thus, the new reality encouraged older adults to also play online games. And gradually, the archaic image of gamers as antisocial basement-dwellers has faded away.

 

 

Games adapting to the high pace

Once gaming became a part of our lives, games got more session-focused since any amount of spare time can now be turned into an online tournament with your friends. While early video games were more like books (you need to finish it to know how it is going to end), now they are more like Facebook posts or news articles — you can get back to them any time you want during the day.

The quality of games inevitably keeps improving. The growth of mobile gaming ensured people play more games and stop thinking of it as geeks-only leisure. For some people, playing mobile games has become a lifestyle. Games started to reflect our thoughts, problems, and fears. We, in turn, let games affect our lives.

This is our new brave world, and it won’t stop evolving. There will be more collaborations with influencers and brands. Gamers and streamers will be more involved in the big brands’ advertisements. And since more and more people want to be lifted to greater heights in their new hobby, they need someone to help them to discover and familiarize themselves with the world of gaming.

We build a strong community, find new ways to effectively communicate with our customers, write comprehensive guides and offer professional consulting and customised training sessions — to help those who find it hard to adapt to the new gaming environment in the most efficient way possible.