The ever-changing gaming trend and how to achieve it

The biggest thing in gaming is always changing. From one game to another, even from one genre to another. But what might have caused this change? Before we try to answer this question, let’s study its history.

A Brief History of Big Gaming Trends

In the last few decades, the internet has grown rapidly and has become an everyday part of mankind. With the internet, the type of entertainment has also changed, with a lot of entertainment relying on the internet. An example is streaming, or watching videos, movies, and TV series over the internet. If the internet is not there then streaming can’t be done either.

Games are the same. At first the game only existed in physical form. Even though online stores like Steam existed in the early 2000s, most gamers still haven’t embraced the use of the internet as it is today.

In the next few years, users are starting to use the internet more than ever before, and this provides an opportunity for online gaming to start becoming very big. These games cover many genres and of course have their own trends. But to give focus to this article, we will only discuss some of the games that have become global.

In 2009 there were two games that entered this category. The first is League of Legends, the name that pushed the MOBA genre to the fore in the gaming world and has kept it strong until now. Indeed, Riot is not the company that came up with the MOBA idea because they took a lot of ideas from the DOTA map that was played in Blizzard’s Warcraft 3. But it was they who made the MOBA name and raised it. Although LoL is not big in Indonesia, of course, readers have heard of its name.

The second game is Minecraft. Again, a game that still survives today, Minecraft brings the idea of the world procedurally generated which can be different each time it is played. Coupled with the feature to play online with friends, and the open nature of Minecraft, it gives players the foundation to create a wide variety of mods and custom games.

One of the custom games made in Minecraft is the Battle Royale mode which may also be inspired by the Hunger Games film series that was airing at that time. A few years later the Battle Royale genre began to take shape with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG being the first big game known to the gaming world in 2017. Unfortunately, PUBG could not hold its throne that had been usurped by Fortnite.

At the same time mobile gaming is also starting to develop rapidly because mobile phone technology is already quite high. Various kinds of popular PC games started making their mobile versions, and these games took the throne of the most popular games. Fortnite on iOS and Android far outpaced the number of players on PC until early 2020.

Then the last trend in this article is Among Us. The game, which was released in 2018, only gained popularity a few months ago when streamer Sodapoppin played this game on his Twitch channel. Within a few months, this very simple game became the most popular game on mobile and PC, with thousands of content creator who create Among Us content on their respective social media.

Guidelines for Creating Game Trends

After we discuss all the big trends in the last decade or more, what factors can we take from these games. Of course Minecraft, League of Legends, Fortnite, and Among Us have found the secret to making trendy games. The answer is more complicated than that. This article will try to condense it into four reasons, but everything below is the opinion of the author and should not be taken as fact.

First of all is not to chase the existing trend. This is because making a good game is difficult, and the development period is long. Developers can’t put out a great game in just a few months. Usually the games we play now take several years to complete. If a studio wants to make games in a trending genre, chances are that the genre they created is out of fashion by the time the game comes out, or the big game that started the genre’s popularity is still around and will beat it.

Therefore, if a developer wants to catch up with the trend, he has to look for the next big thing. Before Minecraft, LoL, Fortnite, and Among Us, games in the same genre existed but were not of the same size. After their popularity rose, then various developers began to build their own versions.

Second is availability on the right platform at the right time. For Minecraft and LoL, the right platform is PC. While consoles were more popular back then, Minecraft wouldn’t have had the huge modding community it is today if it hadn’t been out on PC.

Meanwhile, LoL is indeed the most suitable to be played on PC because of its descendant status from RTS games. The MOBA genre on PC requires a lot of input and accuracy from the mouse to make it competitive. Playing it using a controller will certainly not be as good as using a mouse and keyboard. Right now the MOBA genre is bigger on mobile platforms, and Riot has brought their own version of Wild Rift, but when LoL came out, PC was the true platform.

Then in the case of Among Us, this game was indeed the first “found” on PC, but most players definitely use the free mobile version to play it. Because it’s easy to play Among Us, plus a lot of Among Us content by fans content creators, its popularity is growing very fast.

The next factor is appeal to all demographics. Usually this is achieved by choosing a style that appeals to younger gamers, as they will have more time to play it. Older gamers may have certain tastes, but will probably still play the games that are currently popular.

Among Us with its simple and colorful style meets this criteria, as do all the big games on this list. Due to the cute character designs, they get a lot of memes and fanart, again what is driving the game’s popularity.

The final reason in this article is the price to play the game. All the major games in this article are free to play except Minecraft. But Minecraft is also still playable using a pirated version which might help players try it before buying it. The more players that can try out a game, the bigger the reach. The bigger the reach, the more players will pay in free games.

Many developers have tried to make trending games, but only a few have succeeded in achieving their goals. The latest example might be Genshin Impact, a game that just came out at the end of last September. This game has followed all the points in this article correctly.

The first is to choose a genre that has no major rivals except The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game that only exists on the Nintendo Switch and shows the desire of gamers for games like it. Then miHoYo doesn’t have to think about being on the right platform, because Genshin Impact is available on all platforms. Genshin Impact also has an anime style that appeals to a wide demographic, from young gamers to fans of Japanese content. Lastly, Genshin Impact is free to play, and many gamers are starting to try it because they don’t have to pay for it. Whether Genshin Impact will remain strong in the months and years to come, we’ll find out.

Closing

Of course, these four rules are not all things a game needs to do to become the next trending game. There may be several X-factor difficult to digest in those games, and the developers implemented it by accident like building in Fortnite. Maybe the next big game is in development right now.