Social Gaming: What is it and where is it headed in 2016?

Given the evolution that has underpinned social gaming during the last nine years, it is little wonder that this medium has become incredibly vague and diverse during this time. Inextricably linked to digital, mobile and even console titles, the concept of social gaming is one that continues to evolve with time.

With this in mind, attempting to understand social gaming in real-time and determine its future course is extremely difficult. So even though digital gaming has enjoyed a huge boom in 2015, the performance of the market’s social sector remains unclear.

Fortunately, there has been some slight shed on this issue by recent data released by SuperData Research, which is a gaming intelligence firm that annually appraises the digital marketplace. The figures for 2015 were extremely eye-opening, with the market for digital games rising by 8% to a staggering $61 billion. The biggest driver of this trend was the rising number of digital downloads to consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation, although this segment of the market remains relatively small at just $4 billion in total.

This was also compounded by a decline in the sales of physical games at land-based stores, with this market falling by $5.3 billion year-on-year in 2015. The market for tablet and smartphone games also continued its relentless ascent during the last 12 months, rising by a further 10% to $25.1 billion. Tablet revenue is enjoying a particularly marked increase, while this number is also set to double to nearly $14 billion by the end of 2018.

In terms of social gaming, however, this market experienced a surprising (if marginal) decline. This was despite a rise in the revenues generated by freemium, free-to-play games, which continues to grow at the expense of subscription-based titles.  So despite the freemium nature of popular social titles such as Farmville and MOM strategy games, this channel is struggling to sustain the growth that it has enjoyed previously.

Before we take a dim view on the future of social gaming, however, it is important to understand the titles that make up this market. Many of these diverse and unheralded games have driven growth in wider markets, for example, with free-to-access social titles considered to be behind the continued renaissance being enjoyed by desktop gaming. The PC sector was the largest money-maker in terms of revenue in 2015, generating a staggering $32 billion across the sector and a large percentage of this through social games.

This also includes some of the most lucrative casino websites such as 888casino which have now emerged as the key driver of social gaming in the last five years. Offering players access to great the welcome packages, impressive graphics and outstanding levels of social interaction between players, these titles are continuing to enjoy exponential growth and will surely trigger an upward trend in the market between now and 2020.

There is further room for growth in this sector too, especially given the rise of live and multi-player casino gameplay online. This offers a far greater chance for interaction between players, reinforcing the social element and providing a more accurate replication of corporeal gaming in a virtual setting. So even though social gaming as we know it may have suffered a slight decline in sales last year, its evolutionary nature and adaptability means that it is likely to experience something of a renaissance in 2016 and beyond.