The rise of gaming

Raef Zran
Raef Zran
Sep 5, 2018 · 5 min read

Who would thought that by playing video games you can make a living one day? The idea of building a career or becoming an influencer by just playing video games or by participating in e-sports competition was typically absurd one decade ago, you probably could not argue about such a thing with your parents. But when you see today a young (boy/girl) being sponsored by companies and paid for attracting people by just streaming live themselves playing a video game, that certainly makes you think seriously about the landscape of gaming and raise some serious questions about this topic.

Where does this attention is coming from? What are the factors that made streaming a video game look cool and worthy to make a business around? how can it be possible to grab such attention from millions of people from all over the world by just competing in a tournament of Fortnite Battle Royal?

There is a fundamental thing in business which is based on and without it, your business or any business is deemed to be worthless. It is Attention.

If there is no attention to your service or your product, there is no point in making a business around it. Why am I talking about attention?

Nowadays, if you are walking in a public space, waiting on a line to pay your tax bill or waiting in a metro station you will surely notice a couple of people if not almost are having their eyes on their smartphone screens slashing candies or swiping left and right to handle the course of a car. Most of the time, those people are aging between [10, 35] years old, sometimes you will notice even 50 or 60 years old persons are playing a game on their smartphones which is not surprising after all. Then I ask myself how they became so focused on game apps and what made their attention goes to the app.

In fact, game apps have an online mode. Once you are logged in you can get a match with someone else who is playing the game from her/his smartphone, so now you are competing on who is going to score better. Or in other games, such as PUBG mobile you can enter a battle royal match competing with 100 players on the 1st position. Now you are competing, so you think that you can make it to the 1st rank then you will do your best to win the game. And when I say your best I mean that you will put all your attention to knock out those 99 players in order to win the game. But sometimes it happens you lose, right! so you feel a little of anger driving your body and you decide to play again and not to stop until you come 1st. That is how you get hooked up on the game and have your attention on it. The same thing applies to video games on PCs.

So how the developers of those games are monetizing on attention and what makes their business profitable? There are two main ways.

First, game apps developers can run adds due the high number of users on the app, I am referring here to more than 1 million users (ex: Candy Crush, Angry Birds, etc…) therefore outside companies will not hesitate a second to put their banners in front the eyes of such enormous number of users.

Second, some games are developed to give you the ability to customize your avatar for example by buying online from the store with your credit card new equipment or skins. Also, there are rare items that you can only get them by purchasing them online too. In some cases, those items can give you the advantage to win over another player, then you will not mind spending €3 for example for the sake of winning a game.

So far, I have been talking about the attention on smartphone games and how developers can make profits out of it. Now, let’s tackle the topic of live stream video games.

As you start digging about live stream video games, you will surely find out about the biggest icons of video game players and live streamers, like “PewDiePie” with over 65 million subscribers on Youtube and “Ninja” the biggest live streamer on Twitch with over 10 million followers. They both have the largest records of views number. “PewDiePie” with over 18 billion views (all video combined) and Ninja” with almost 300 million views (all lives combined). When you see those huge numbers and start thinking about it from a business perspective, you get a little twist in your mind. Then, you understand how important their exposure to the public is. Considering the number of views, they get from the content they upload, they definitely make millions of revenues, 1000 views on Youtube can get you $1.5.

Additionally, if you count the money they earn from sponsorship deals from brands, it increases more their revenues.

Of course, “Ninja” and “PewDiePie” are not the only famous gamers, there are several other YouTubers or Live streamers who are popular, but they are ranked under both, surely I am not undermining their popularity. With such exposure, I think such gamers like both or close to their stats are worthy to be considered as stars of gaming or as influencers.

Eventually, a question arises, what made such people so popular today?

If you remember the period of time in your life when you were playing video games, you will surely recall the Fridays nights that you had spent with your best friends playing video games, and most importantly you will recall the funny moments and impressions that you have had for losing against your friend or overreacting because of an epic scene or because of bug in the game. Those moments are most likely to be memorized forever because you had good times and you had emotionally experienced exciting moments. That being said, what about watching someone whenever and whatever you like on your phone screen or your PC who is playing a video game you love and reminds you about those fun moments, you will definitely start following him/her on Youtube or Twitch if he/she really entertains you with his/her content. Basically, this is how gaming YouTubers or gaming live streamers grow their popularity and audiences by uploading continuously gameplays and reviews of games liked by their followers.

On the other hand, the two online platforms Youtube and Twitch are dominating in video media consumption. The numbers are showing exactly their dominance, Youtube has more than 1.8 billion monthly active users and more than 50 million content creator and Twitch has more than 450 million monthly active users and more than 2.2 million streamers. The stats justify why video content creators have interest in creating channels on these platforms to gain more exposure.

Moreover, the technology of video games development has significantly evolved so games are becoming more immersive than before. For instance, I believe Virtual Reality technology is shifting the gaming experience and it creates more demand on video games as it gives more fun and excitement for players. Therefore, video game developers and publishers have indeed the opportunity to make profits.

In add to that, the graphics of video games are improving and are becoming more realistic than ever, therefore players are having better gaming experience and getting more amazed. For example, if you play Final Fantasy XV your mind will be blown by the high quality of graphics and textures.

Overall, I think gaming and e-sports markets are massively growing and the near future is hiding more excitement and entertainment. I am also a strong believer that video games influencers will contribute a lot to the expansion of these markets.

Raef Zran

Written by

Raef Zran

I like sharing my thoughts with people and interacting with them. I am interested in gaming, digitization, geopolitics and International relation.