The role of games continues to grow rapidly in the entertainment industry. More and more people are playing games as a way of social interaction and a way to spend their free time. The recent events related to Covid-19 have become a catalyst for the development of this area. We have prepared an article in which we would like to talk about the predicted trends in the gaming industry in 2022 — with a small focus on visual design. 

More and more attention is being focused on the mobile segment

Affordable gaming and the rapidly growing quality of projects in 2021 have had a huge impact on the number of money companies make from mobile projects. It’s all about the availability of smartphones. According to analytics firm Statista, mobile gaming brought in an incredible amount of money in 2021 — even by the standards of the industry as a whole — and this trend will only grow in 2022. It is predicted that by the end of 2022, there will be over 1.8 billion mobile gamers, and more and more companies are turning their attention to this segment of the market. 

From the visual side of things, mobile interaction design requires a very particular approach. Controls must feel natural, indistinguishable from the way users usually interact with their smartphone, — and yet, specific to a game and mechanics that support the narrative. A good example of good porting to mobile is in Genshin Impact. 

Competition is growing, so are the genres and monetization methods are changing too

As gamers are now playing more, longer, on different platforms, they are spending more. Newzoo predicts that gamer spending will grow to $218.7 billion up to 2024. 

This has naturally led to more and more developers trying to win the attention of more and more audiences. To realize these goals, game companies have to experiment with genres and monetization models. 

Now among the most popular categories of games are hyper-casual projects and mid-core titles. Most of these games are free-to-play and earn mainly through advertising or in-game purchases. Therefore, there is a fresh trend of attracting players to advertising. This is reward advertising, where the user receives a reward after watching a commercial. This trend has proven to be much better than banner ads.

On the design side, things are getting more diverse. With interest in the games growing, niche genres like horror, surrealism, and others are becoming more popular. Indie creators from all over the world are getting more attention, with their unusual graphics, innovative approach to storytelling, text-based narratives. The recent amazing — both graphically and narratively — title on the borders between detective, drama, and so many other genres — is Disco Elysium, a game with a mystery and dice rolls-based mechanics ingrained in decision making. (Just like Hades which was released a bit later, it’s an isometric game — which is another very interesting niche trend (old is new) that’s becoming mainstream.) 

The need for social functions

Covid-19 restrictions have left their mark on the gaming industry. People lacked communication. And in multiplayer projects, social functions in games became more and more in demand. This all allows developers to cover the need for people to communicate, to help them cope with the stress.

Another important factor is the rapid deployment of fifth-generation networks, which enable developers to release multiplayer AAA projects. Crossplay and franchises help strengthen brands.

Here, it is also worth mentioning the growing popularity of cross-platform projects. They have gained their popularity partly because players try to stay with their friends in any way they can. Certainly, developing for multiple platforms with crossplay increases costs, but at the same time, it can open doors to a much larger user base. We all see major PC and console developers trying to enter the mobile market, from Epic Games with Fortnite to, again, Genshin Impact and Pokémon Unite. 

In addition, studios are increasingly creating spin-offs, using their main product brand from consoles or PCs in variants optimized for mobile devices, like Wild Rift, to provide gamers with a similar gaming experience.

On the design side of things, the need for social interactions means comfortable integrating chats in UX. An interesting realization of that can be found within Death Stranding’s multiplayer. 

The semiconductor crisis affects the gaming industry

Every one of you has seen the news, or even personally, that it is now very difficult to buy a new graphics card or a game console of the latest generation. This is because demand is now growing at a rate of about 17% per year, while supply is only increasing by 6% over the same time. 

It becomes easy to understand how serious difficulties are being experienced by the vendors of devices where these chips are used. In this regard, we think that we should not wait for any breakthrough in the graphical component of games. Forecasts for the hardware market for 2022 vary greatly – it is more likely that the problem will be solved in 1.5-3 years. 

For the design, it means that visual artists and developers must refine their style within constraints of the mediums they have access to. 

Against the backdrop of the aforementioned semiconductor crisis, cloud gaming is becoming more and more attractive. Gamers no longer need to look for opportunities to buy a new console or to build a powerful gaming computer. All they need is a PC or smartphone with a gamepad and fast Internet. 

While that may have sounded overly innovative recently, cloud gaming is already a reality with millions of gamers using GeForce Now and Google Stadia. Analysts predict that by 2023 the cloud gaming industry will earn at least $5.14 billion. Plus, Microsoft is joining the cloud platform race and its Xbox Cloud Gaming is already in beta testing September 2021 in most European countries. The fact that such big market players are bucking this trend suggests that we may see a new round of cloud platform proliferation as early as 2022.

The year 2022, for the most part, continues the trends that began in 2021. Nevertheless, the industry continues to grow and evolve despite hardware shortages, limitations, and changing focus among gamers.