Why Video Games are the Next Big Social Network

In a world awash with information and eye candy, “social gaming” is rapidly evolving as the largest existential threat to legacy media’s claim on engaged consumer attention. Trust and manipulation issues are also causing people to look beyond incumbent social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

Social networking as we know it relies on content consumed in the past tense. Photos, videos, tweets, are all a part of our lives that are captured first and then shared or consumed by others afterwards. Gaming, on the other hand, is inherently a real-time social experience, whether it is with friends playing together online or streamers broadcasti... See more

As Ryan Holmes wrote in Fast Company, “socializing is way more fun when you’re doing stuff.” With the increasing popularization of gaming culture, we think gaming will much more frequently be the “stuff” we’re doing while we’re socializing and interacting with each other.

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.