Growing Popularity of Online Games in the Near Future
Online games and mobile phones will grow at a very fast pace in the coming years, with a current global expenditure of around $74billion on electronic games.
According to Gartner, though majority of the current expenditure will be on consoles, in the years to come, spending on online games, could take over a larger chunk of the total expenditure, as social networking sites and new gaming models become more popular. Currently most of the online games that are available against subscription, could be made available free of charge in the near future by the developers, as they make earnings through in-game advertisings and selling virtual goods.
According to principal research analyst at Gartner, Tuong Nguyen, online games for mobiles are the most popular downloads in app stores. Angry Birds is one of the popular downloads for smartphones and tablets.
Online games are hosted by Microsoft and Sony through their respective gaming consoles, Xbox and Playstation. Online games are also being developed by Microsoft for smartphones.