When Gaming Uses Tech To Go Global – Exploring The Changing Dynamic
In the modern age, every game utilizes the power of the internet to market its ideas as widely as possible. Before the internet, large enough gaming companies would use everything they had at their disposal, including TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and billboards.
However, as this market dynamic changed and more of us started to turn to the internet for gaming, marketing companies quickly followed suit. Nowadays, social media engagement is the primary driving force in marketing.
New gaming announcements can go global and viral within hours of their launch. The GTA 6 trailer, released in December 2023, amassed nearly 100 million views within 24 hours, making it the most-watched game trailer of all time and shattering several records.
Using Tech To Their Advantage
With the fabric of the market relying heavily on social media and digital marketing, it’s essential to remember that we are witnessing the culmination of several factors that have emerged over the last two decades, creating the foundation for this change.
Technology has created a range of enormous opportunities for the gaming industry, and it’s not just that it’s made marketing cheaper and more effective; in some cases, it has created entirely new variants of conventional gaming.
Perhaps the best example of this is the casino gaming industry, and the way conventional games have been able to adjust their designs to bring on board a whole host of new gamers.
Poker has evolved from the smoky backrooms of Wild Western taverns to conventional games, to video poker terminals, and then to online poker, which has removed established elements of the game, such as bluffing, but has championed a strategy-first approach.
Playing real poker games follows a similar blueprint to conventional games. Still, by leveraging technology, it has fundamentally changed the game’s dynamics and welcomed more casino gamers who may not be keen on the idea of bluffing and psychological elements, instead preferring a more strategic approach.
As we touched on earlier, the rise of social media has enabled all gaming companies to leverage this technology to their advantage.
As you can see in the link below, even in the world of poker, social media is a tool that can be leveraged to tap into various niches and reach a global audience – and it’s a trend that shows no signs of slowing down.
Branching Into Broader Media
For gaming brands that grow to a large enough size, the sky is the limit. They don’t just stop at social media and digital marketing; they go beyond this and into the broader mainstream if they have the market potential to do so.
The Minecraft movie and its box-office success are a recent testament to this, but we have also seen crossover gaming ideas generate huge success, ranging from Super Mario to The Last of Us.
When a brand attains such an undeniable level of success, this then feeds into every other avenue, creating an ecosystem where even the smallest niche ideas can find success. It’s a trickle-down impact.
More designers and cutting-edge tech innovators are looking under every proverbial rock to find a design that works, ranging from an AI Minecraft skin generator to VR gaming, which is becoming an increasingly important part of the industry.
It’s a scattergun approach as well. Just because a game is successful does not mean that every single facet, idea, and subdivision it generates has the potential to make cash. It also doesn’t mean that it’s used solely for marketing.
The emergence of AI has been a revolutionary addition in identifying problem gamblers for casino gaming companies.
As they grapple with these new innovations, gaming companies are working tirelessly and around the clock to ensure they position themselves in the most advantageous position to capture the profits the industry is currently generating.
A Smaller World
Unlike the days before the internet, the rise of global gaming and marketing has brought down many of the traditional barriers that existed.
With AI and VR poised to bring about the latest significant changes in the gaming industry, it’s challenging to predict exactly how this will unfold in reality.
One thing is for sure, though: any significant changes in the world of gaming will be influenced heavily by tech.
Our world has become so interconnected that the gaming market is no longer the fractured, bespoke, and localized industry it was in the days before the internet.
While this has created opportunities, it has not come without its headaches for gaming companies, who have had to completely reshape their approach to tech integration and global marketing strategies.
Ultimately, those who have been able to adapt have found incredible success, and the same will apply to companies that are able to take the latest tech innovations and mold them into business models that dictate future success.