[Part 1] GameFi Research: Game Market – The Hottest Industry.

Research article on the topic of GameFi made by the Coincu Insights team, thereby projecting the potential of this puzzle piece in the Crypto market.

The information focuses on Researching the traditional game market: What is the reasons for the success of the titles, the revenue model and the current landscape.

Traditional Game Market 

Overview

(1) Traditional games are now very developed. 

(2) Players will join and stay in games that meet their needs pyramid.

(3) The most popular games usually have some of the following characteristics:

• Community in nature.
• Be creative.
• Competitive.
• Free to Play (but still generates a lot of revenue).

(4) PC and mobile games are occupying most of the market share. The Free-to-play, pay-for-convenience model has proven successful with PC/Mobile titles. 

(5) The rational development strategy of PC/Mobile games is to create a game with good content, without barriers to entry to attract users. Players when participating can choose to pay to help themselves stand out. The key is good game quality to attract users. 

(6) The console game market share is concentrated mainly on a few big names. Hardware (electronics, handles…) is their strong point and it is difficult for new names to compete. Console game sales are cyclical and heavily dependent on new titles. 

(7) Games are gradually appearing in new branches such as VR/AR games and cloud games. Although still new, VR / AR and cloud games have their own unique selling points that other game branches do not have. 

Game Development Trends 

The origin of the development trend of games is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  

According to Maslow Tower, the first two floors are always met by default:

• Tier 1 (Biological Need): Health enough to play games.
• Tier 2 (Need for Safety): Playing games does not put yourself in danger from the outside. 

From there develop the elements of the upper layer:

• Tier 3 (Social Needs): Playing games helps you to participate in a certain community, especially online games where you can interact with each other. 
• Tier 4 (Need for Respect): Playing the game creates a sense of accomplishment or having achieved something. 
• Tier 5 (The need for self-actualization): Playing games is good enough to help express yourself.

Using Maslow’s tower to look at the chart of the formation and development of games in 50 years, we can understand the reasons for the growth and collapse of game types. 

The first is Arcade games: These are mainly simple games that focus on the 4th floor but forget the 3rd floor. This makes players when completing the game will often quit and not stick with the next game. 

Console games are similar, no matter how good the game is, if it only meets the 4th and 5th floors of the tower, it is difficult to maintain. So console games are cyclical, and new games need to change every year.

The reason console games have not lost market share is that the source of new games is still attractive enough, there are online modes and big events that help connect the console game community like the E3 electronic entertainment fair.

The development of the Internet has led to the explosion of the PC and mobile gaming market with the Online/PVP element, the 3rd floor of Maslow Tower is met to help the development of games on these platforms. 

Once the 3rd floor has been met, more prominent games will meet the 4th and 5th floors of the demand tower. That’s why we often see in-game achievements (4th tier) and tournaments or leaderboards to rank players (5th tier). 

Esports or e-sports has emerged recently, in essence, to satisfy the 5th floor in Maslow’s tower. Players can then express themselves and receive additional rewards for their efforts. The reason Esports developed is that traditional games have met the lower tiers too well, the 5th tier is the top tier and fits the current meta.

On the other hand, the over-development of Maslow floors on Mobile and PC games may have caused the market to hit the ceiling and it is difficult to find new breakthroughs. VR/AR games and Cloud Games were born with the aim of breaking down this barrier and bringing a new breeze to the game market.

Factors That Help A Game Develop And Maintain 

Analysis of game trends in the past 10 years:

From the table above, we analyze the 3 most prominent and long-lasting games Minecraft, Fortnite and World of Warcraft.

Case studies 

Minecraft

Minecraft is a video game in the sandbox game genre, a branch of the open world. Minecraft allows players to create and build structures just by arranging cubes together. In addition, the game also has many activities to build buildings including searching, gathering resources, crafting and fighting.

Besides, Minecraft also has many game modes available including survival, super hard, creative, adventure, audience, and multiplayer.

The game is also famous for its third-party mods, which allow players to own new tools, diverse characters, and specific missions for players to perform.

Things Minecraft gives players: 

• Minecraft is famous for its strong community, where players can consult experiences on forums, create teams to build architecture or participate in different game modes. 
• Players can create whatever they want based on the tools that Minecraft provides. In Minecraft, it’s not the publisher who creates the content, but the user who creates the content. 
• Minecraft has a dedicated section on its website to showcase the most beautiful architectures created in its game. With visits of tens of millions of people per month, this not only brings great honour to the works on display, it also brings opportunities and popularity. 

As a free-to-play game, Minecraft still generates a steady stream of revenue every year with a gradually growing number of players. 

World of warcraft

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Players will play the characters in the game and explore the world, develop characters, create teams to fight bosses and many other interesting features. 

Things World of Warcraft give players: 

• An online game where users can interact and do many activities together (exploration, boss hunting).
• There’s a sense of accomplishment with the levelling, loot, and skill system. 
• Players show their strength and skills to other players. World of Warcraft also has tournaments with valuable rewards to encourage players to participate. 
• The cumulative revenue that World of Warcraft from its inception until 2016 is more than 9.23 billion USD. However, the management company did not update the data from the game after that. World of Warcraft is also a Free-to-play game.

Fortnite

Fortnite belongs to the genre of survival shooter combined with unique building elements. 

Things Fortnite gives players: 

• A survival game where players (or teams of players) have to compete with other players.
• Create the right architecture to create an advantage in the game. 
• The feeling of accomplishment of being the last survivor. 
• Great events and tournaments with valuable rewards.

As a free-to-play game, Fortnite’s revenue a year reaches billions of dollars, a very large number. Fortnite’s user base has also grown steadily over the years. 

Summary

(1) Traditional games are now very developed. 

(2) Players will join and stay in games that meet their needs

(3) The most popular titles have the following characteristics:

• Community
• Be creative 
• Competitive 
• Free to Play (but still generates a lot of revenue) 

(4) PC and mobile games are occupying most of the market share.

(5) There are gradually appearing games in new branches such as VR/AR games and cloud games.

Verdict

In part 2, I think I will focus on the revenue streams that the game industry brings and how game publishers maintain their position.

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DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your research before investing.

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