Friday, January 29, 2021

Marketing Trends in the Online Gaming Industry

Video games and gambling have come a long way from the first console games and first online casinos. Gaming, which used to be a niche category for young boys, is now mainstream. Playing casino games used to be completely man-oriented but now there are as many women gamblers as men. The future of the gaming industry is changing as the demographics of gamers are changing.

We asked Canadian blogger Michelle Thomas about trends the gaming industry experienced in 2020. Michelle is an online casino expert and you can read more about her.

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Gaming industry trends 2020

The gaming industry statistics 2020 in Canada were influenced by several factors, among them the lockdown measures because of Covid-19 but technological changes and social media are also contributors.

Mobile gaming advances

Mobile gaming is taking a larger and larger portion of the gaming industry every year. Nowadays more people play on their smartphones than on PCs and consoles altogether. In the past mobile games tended to be quite simple so that they wouldn’t take too much of the phone’s memory but now with unlimited data packages games on smartphones can be played online.

Playing quick games like video poker or video slots is particularly popular on mobile devices and often players from Canada have a choice of using the casino’s app or the mobile-optimized version. If you enjoy gambling on your phone but don’t want to spend a lot of money on it find a minimum deposit casino and play low-stakes games.

 A focus on female gamers

Gaming and gambling are not only for boys and men anymore. According to Statista the number of female gamblers in Canada has been climbing every year and reached 50% by 2018. So, it would be ridiculous not to focus on women when marketing games. There are games with themes that appeal to women, however, studies show that women often enjoy mainstream games. What they do not enjoy is games with overly sexualized content that are typically created for men.

Some online casinos focus on women by using lively, feminine colours and popular movie themes, such as the Sex and the City. Women also like the social aspects of gaming so these casinos will often have chat rooms available with their games where women can chat and make new friends.

A changing business model of games

Game producers have realized that they can get recurring revenue with microtransactions built into games. Gamers used to simply purchase a game and use it until they got bored with it or a new, better version came out.

Nowadays, many game producers offer games that are free to download but to reach a new level, get a new life or add some cool features, gamers will have to dig into their wallets. This is not only additional and regular revenue for the game provider but they can get important information on customer habits and tailor the paid features according to what sells.

Marketing trends in the online gambling industry

One of the biggest influencers of the marketing of the online gambling industry in 2020 was the pandemic. As sports events were being cancelled last spring and summer, online casinos made betting on esports possible. With the lockdown, people were forced to stay home and they started streaming esports tournaments on platforms like Twitch in record numbers of hours. With the online casinos now, players had a way of betting on these events as well.

Apart from esports, virtual sports were also a big hit in the betting section. Apart from virtual football, greyhound and horse-racing, a  Formula 1 Virtual Grand Prix has been created as the actual races were being cancelled and bettors happily placed bets on these events instead.

Conclusion

With such a large percentage of people from Canada playing games and gambling on a regular basis game producers and online casinos have to adapt their marketing strategies to address new demographics. The widespread use of smartphones and fast internet connection make the availability of games easy and game producers are using new business models to maximize their profits.

The post Marketing Trends in the Online Gaming Industry first appeared on Feedster.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/tech-and-gadgets/marketing-trends-in-the-online-gaming-industry/

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