Gamescom 2023: insights and trends that will change the future of gaming.

This week one of the biggest gaming circuses in the world touched down in Cologne. Celebrated by hundreds of thousands of players, Gamescom opened its doors for both the business as public visitors. Resulting in gaming enthusiasts traveling across countries to get a first glimpse of upcoming games and groundbreaking technology.

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Besides the millions of gamers across the globe, who constantly look forward to receiving the smallest of details for their favorite upcoming games, it is also closely followed by industry veterans who use the event to spot the latest trends and consumer behavior.

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The Invaders, specialists that help brands unlock the marketing value of gaming, also traveled to Cologne to attend the gaming festivity that is known as Gamescom. Focusing on meeting new people to expand our network in the gaming industry, but also to roam around the exhibition and spot the newest trends and developments.

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As we believe that gaming will play a crucial role in a brand’s marketing mix in the future we simply had to attend the event and look, and experience, new ways of radically putting players first.

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Most notable trends and developments from this year’s edition

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To sum up this year’s edition, we picked the most notable trends that we’ve spotted. Listed below is a summary of these trends expanded with our expectations on how it can be beneficial for brands.

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Gaming industry mimics music industry revolution

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Back in the late 90’s, record labels were the true powerhouses within the music industry. Resulting in limited accessibility to the music industry for independent artists. When trying to reach the mainstream audience you simply had to work together with the major labels. However, this all changed when platforms as Soundcloud and Spotify started to gain traction.

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Smaller artists could now reach the mainstream audience through these streaming platforms, removing the need to work together with these major labels.

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In current day and age, it seems nearly impossible to imagine to not have the freedom of upload whatever and whenever you want in the music industry.

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Just like the music industry, the gaming industry had the big AAA publishers who reached the masses and who had to approve everything before being able to use of their Intellectual property.

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However, like the music industry, the gaming industry is going through a bit of a revolution on that subject. The line between triple A games reaching the masses and indie games for the smaller audiences is started to fade.

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Indie games, developed by independent publishers, make it much easier for a brand to reach agreements to enter their game or use their IP for a campaign.

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With games like Fortnite and Roblox giving creators the possibility to reach their millions of users by allowing them to upload their work to their platform.

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This year, a lot of these indie games had the opportunity to showcase their work at Gamescom. Considering 4 out of the 10 highest grossing games of 2022 were indie games, we as The Invaders look forward to possibilities to link these games to brands.

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Putting your gaming experience to work

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With years of dedication and hard work put into gaming, players develop various skillsets in gaming that they can implement in their work in real life. To recruit gamers with the right skillset, and moreover to give the players a chance to put their learnings to work, various universities and companies set up interactive tests around Gamescom to put these gamers to the test.

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For example, a hacking game was developed where visitors had to try to hack into a secured system, if succeeding they were invited for a follow-up interview for a job.

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Seeing various of these challenges throughout Gamescom means that a growing part of the technological industry and brands are starting to recognize the skills that gamers develop by playing games. And moreover, are giving them the chance to put these skills to the test and use them in real life.

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We think that there is a high potential for brands to recruit new people by creating interactive experiences to see if they fit the company.

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More people to reach with cloud gaming.

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The amount of people who play video games is ever growing. With approximately 3.09B players worldwide, and an expected 3.3B by 2024, not reaching this group would be wasted potentialfor brands.

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One of recurring technological advancements in the tech showcased at Gamescom was cloud gaming. A lot of big companies like Samsung and Microsoft are heavily investing in this area

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The concept of cloud gaming is that everyone with a digital device, from mobile to TV, can connect to a game streaming service by being connected to the internet. Instead of downloading and installing the game, people can just stream the games and remove the need for expensive operating systems.

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Cloud gaming simply means that the hardware threshold, that a lot of people face, disappears. Resulting in more gamers around the world who can experience activations through gaming.

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Want to get more insights into how the everchanging games industry can elevate your business?

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Four times a year we host the Value Game sessions, where we invite brands and agencies to join us as we touch upon interesting subjects in the game marketing industry. Coming 5 September we will host our latest one where we talk about the social impact in gaming and cover more trends we've spotted at Gamescom

If you would like to visit these sessions, feel free to contact [email protected] and receive an exclusive invitation for our next session.

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