Interactive Gaming Recap Of Mary Meeker’s 2017 Internet Trends Report
Tech Leadership, Product Innovation, And Modern Learning
Many believe that the potential for interactive gaming is massive. The highly regarded Internet Trends report by Kleiner Perkins’ Mary Meeker validates this belief. Meeker addressed a variety of trends in media, cloud, and healthcare to name a few. The trend I’m particularly interested in is the tech product innovation and modern learning of interactive games. Global interactive gaming is still early days, however, it’s never been more mainstream. There are 2.6B gamers today compared to 100M in 1995.
Meeker covers several key factors contributing to the adoption and growth of gaming. Here are some quick takeaways from this section of the report:
Global Collaboration
Gaming has evolved from individual play to global collaborative play. What used to take one player on an arcade game and two players on a single console has now evolved to millions of players and spectators playing online. Gen X and millennials have been gaming since birth. The sports arena has replaced the living room.
Growing Business
Gaming is a large and expanding market around the world. Revenue is at $100B, increasing 9% year over year. The Asia Pacific is the largest market with $47B in revenue. Also, mobile daily gaming session duration is rising, the average age of gamers is 35 years old and there is a steady rise of casual female gamers.
Optimized Learning
Gaming tools are pervasive online. They can optimize learning and engagement. Gaming provides lessons on solving puzzles, competition, structured play, trial & error and learning from others.
eSports
People watch what they play. eSports is an expanding gaming ecosystem via fans and spectators. Twenty-seven percent of millenials have a significant preference for eSports over traditional sports. NBA teams have invested in eSports teams and Facebook expanded eSports relationship with ESL streaming deal. Money is following the users with partnerships/investments bringing eSports to the mainstream.
These four trends are motivating new advances in technology and development platforms are evolving at rapid speed. The future of gaming will continue to be driven by interaction, metrics, and rankings.
“If you want to see what business leadership may look like in three to five years, look at what’s happening in online games.” — Byron Reeves, Professor of Communication, Stanford University, 6/07
In concluding this section of the report, Meeker poses a question, “Perhaps interactive gaming is preparing society for the on-going rise of human-computer interactions?” It’s likely that gaming historically correlates to tech leadership and innovation across industries.
You can view the report in its entirety by clicking here.
