Gamers that don’t play: a new age of videogames
Active spectators are an important part of the worldwide community of over 2.5 billion people.
If, whenever you hear about watching somebody play a videogame, your mind goes back to the time you spent waiting for your siblings or friends to lose while you patiently awaited your turn, you might be missing out on one of the most striking trends of the industry.
According to Peter Warman, CEO and co-founder Newzoo, nowadays, watching another person play is becoming as important an activity as playing yourself. From mass events to live broadcasts, commented videos and other content, it is a mass spectacle: 60% of gamers have watched some video content regarding videogames and about 400 million people watch live streams regularly.
What do they watch? On the one hand, there’s esports: gamers’ competitions that fill stadiums with their own contracts and sponsors. In 2018, the League of Legends World Championship had 1.9 billion spectators who dedicated nearly 80 million hours.
Also, in the last decade, live broadcasts or pre-recorded videos have become popular, with or without player comments. YouTube reports 200 million daily spectators in their Gaming section, and the streaming platform Twitch had 15 million last year. Broadcasts are monetized and some players have become rich and famous. Titles like Fortnite: Battle Royale, for example, have an enthusiastic crowd: the game has 250 million registered players, and for nearly a whole year it was Twitch’s most popular game.
Up until now, we have talked about competitive games, generally about gunshots, wars and such. But casual games also have their appeal, especially when they encourage you to share them in social networks. It’s a bit embarassing to say this, but during the aforementioned interview, Warman names one of our games as an example:
“In Trivia Crack users are the ones who add, moderate and answer the questions –he explained–. This is why when the content they’ve created appears, they take a screen-shot and share it with their contacts. It’s fun, you are involved.”
The funniest thing, perhaps, is that there is a sector that does not play, but still watches others play. For example, in the case of three popular titles like League of Legends, Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2,45% of enthusiasts are exclusively players, 23% are exclusively watchers and 32% are both. According to Newzoo, 42% of esports spectators do not participate in the games.
These enthusiasts are also an active part of the community; they chat, share and buy merchandising products, which shows that the videogames universe is bigger than previously thought.
What does this mean for developers? That it is important to create entertaining moments in the game that are worth sharing. This helps build a strong community and attract new users.
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To sum up, whether it’s to admire and learn from the experts’ skills, to get to know a game, to be a part of an active community, to follow an interesting character or simply to have fun, videogames as a show are undoubtedly a key factor in the market. And if the reason for why someone would spend time in this is not clear yet, let’s remember that videos of soap cutting have millions of views in social media. Human beings are entertained by much stranger things.
