State of Play: Six Trends Revolutionizing Games | Andreessen Horowitz

New tools empower players to create their own content in the form of mods/maps/items/game modes. UGC allows games to scale quickly and cost-effectively—rather than building everything in-house.

The next big movie franchise/theme park/toy line will likely come from games. Players are spending thousands of hours interacting with game characters. Many developers are moving away from a publisher-led financing model to a VC model that enables them to maintain ownership over their IP.

Influencers on social channels like Twitch/Discord/Reddit are driving game discovery. By cultivating early adopter communities, developers will be able to self-publish instead of relying on conventional marketing tactics. The top two games of 2019 (Respawn’s Apex Legends and Riot’s Teamfight Tactics) were both marketed primarily via Twitch streamer... See more

Cross-platform play becomes the new standard, multiplayer games will grow much faster and larger than older generations. Fortnite’s 250M player base is partly due to its ubiquitous presence on every platform.

Games have evolved beyond Hollywood-style releases to become live services that can thrive for years. These “games-as-a-service” are continually reshaped by user feedback, dramatically extending player lifetimes.

Games are the next social network. Fortnite looks more like FB than it does a traditional shooter game. For many, the battle royale has become secondary to the party: ex: 11M people attended Fortnite’s live, in-game Marshmello concert earlier this year.

he way we develop, discover, and play games is rapidly evolving.