Gametech
What is game technology?
Game technology, or gametech, refers to dedicated solutions and services that are used throughout a game’s lifecycle and are built especially for the purpose of game development. This is in contrast to products which can be used by game developers but weren’t built with them in mind.
According to Newzoo, game tech is divided into 4 categories: development, operations, market analysis, and growth.
- Development includes anything needed to actually build the game, such as engines, software management tools, art tools, localization, middleware, and audio tools
- Operations include solutions for game performance marketing, platforms, ad monetization, game analytics, ad mediation, infrastructure and cloud services, and customer engagement
- Market analysis includes market analytics tools
- Growth includes tools for ad attribution and UA analytics, user acquisition, influencer marketing, app store optimization, and ad creative
3 gaming technologies that shaped the industry
1. Localization technologies have become particularly important recently. Now that mobile devices are becoming increasingly affordable, more people are gaming across the globe. Localizing games as well as UA campaigns to key markets is key for success, and that includes imagery as well as text.
2. Following the explosive growth of streaming platforms recently, influencer technologies are also becoming increasingly important tools, especially for PC and console titles. These are tools which automate influencer marketing to increase user acquisition and competition for users’ attention.
3. Growth platforms that provide a handful of tools beyond mediation, for example, are also becoming even more critical for a game’s success. Enabling a game developer to A/B test monetization, optimize campaigns, and drill down into granular data - all in one place better enables long-term for the growth of the industry.
Game tech news in 2020
As gaming supersedes entertainment categories like film and television, we can expect game tech to become more prevalent in everyday news. In 2020, for example, ironSource added creative insights to its user acquisition platform, so advertisers can better analyze how each creative asset in a UA campaign performs. For games especially, optimizing creatives can make or break a game's success.
In addition, the cloud gaming space, which includes solutions like Google Stadia and Microsoft's Project xCloud, is heating up as industry players realize the opportunity in developing technologies that allow gamers to play AAA games instantly on any device. Though it's unlikely cloud gaming will replace consoles and PCs or convert a new audience of casual gamers to AAA, we can expect it to grow the gaming market.