Paying Real Money to Buy Virtual Goods and Online Subscriptions in Video Games
The video game industry is one of the largest economic sectors in the world, bringing in billions of dollars in revenue. With the advent of the internet, people can now play their favourite casino games in online casinos that offer a no deposit bonus. With the increasing popularity of video games, players are using real money to buy virtual goods and subscriptions.
Paying real money for virtual goods
With the exponential growth of social media and gaming, the sale of virtual goods has exploded over the last decade. Virtual goods are purely cosmetic and they don’t enhance the player’s skills in any way. All they do is change the appearance of characters in the game. Due to its consumer mass market nature, the world of online gaming is somewhat uniform and players have a limited number of options while designing their characters. Therefore, the majority of characters in the game have the same appearance.
This prevents gamers from visually expressing their identity in the online gaming world. That’s where skins come in – they provide players with an ability to change their in-game appearance. Skins in video games represent exclusivity and sell for higher amounts because they’re unique. They offer an exciting way for players to show off their in-game wealth. Even a gamer with poor stats can garner admiration from his peers if he has a prestigious skin. For professional and hard-core gamers, community recognition in video games is just as important as it is in the real world. Today, the video game skins industry is worth $50 billion and it will keep growing in the coming years.
Online subscriptions
The video games industry was one of the first to operate a subscription-based business model, even before gaming went online. In 2002, companies like GameFly used to send physical discs and cartridges to customers. Gaming subscriptions has undergone a major shift since the introduction of the internet, making things a little more complex. Today, there are over 2.5 billion gamers around the world and most of them want more content, options and perks in their online subscriptions. It is estimated that players will spend $152.1 billion on video games by the end of 2019, putting pressure on subscription services to offer competitive features, pricing and content.
With the increasing usage of smartphones around the world, the mobile gaming segment will continue to grow. The mobile gaming market has grown over 10 per cent year-over-year since 2018, comprising 45% of the total gaming market. Smartphones generated $54.9 billion revenue in the same year which indicates that subscription services will shift their focus towards mobile gaming in the coming years. Gaming companies will need to pivot their approaches once again to attract mobile gamers on a global scale.
Future of virtual currency
The virtual currency will become a much more accepted form of payments both online and offline in the future. Brands are more likely to infiltrate games to a great extent by circulating virtual items in the gaming community.
