Digital gaming and viewership of gaming video content (GVC) has become more popular amid the pandemic. In 2021, some of this activity will see modest growth, while interest in other forms of gaming will taper off.

ES: Pricing, performance, and ease of use dictated who owned the market in the early days of personal computing. Today, VR ecosystems and platforms continue that trend as the metaverse takes shape: Consumers, developers, and content producers will eventually decide the future of the metaverse, but they will be limited by hardware’s capabilities. We look at the state of VR hardware, the key players, and how gaming could serve as a gateway to VR/AR adoption.

We break down the metaverse and how it can define the future of computing, gaming, finance, social media, and business: AR and VR technologies, expanding virtual platforms and ecosystems, as well as an appetite for more immersive experiences are pushing the boundaries of reality into the virtual world.

Payments Ecosystem: POS hardware, POS software, and gateway providers are working to become one-stop shops for merchants. Offering simple, robust access to front- and back-end solutions across industries lets them better serve merchants demanding integrated solutions.

Brand interest in video games is rising, especially with the buzz around the metaverse. This report will look at the different ways developers monetize video games, and which of those methods are the most useful for marketers.

Gaming platforms are much further ahead in terms of adoption of crypto, but they’re not quite there in terms of blockchain integration or scope. Video game platform Roblox, which is pioneering a metaverse-like world, counts nearly 50 million daily gaming users, including more than half of all children in the US as of July 2020, per Morning Brew.

HBO Max is making a show based on Sony-owned “The Last of Us”; Netflix has several video game adaptations like “Arcane”; Paramount+ has adapted Halo (which was created by Bungie); and Amazon is also working on an adaptation of (now Microsoft-owned) “Fallout.”.

Though video gaming has been around for decades, it was the entertainment of choice for many during the pandemic.

On today's episode, we discuss how much "Top Gun: Maverick" is helping movie theaters recover, why the number of American video game players is shrinking, the headwinds threatening air travel's recovery, how much money Spotify made from podcast ads, when Amazon may overtake Walmart as the largest retailer in the US, an unpopular opinion about the movie-viewing experience, how Bluetooth got its name, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our analysts Dave Frankland and Paul Verna and director of forecasting Oscar Orozco.

Sony’s future gaming fortunes are in PC titles: The PlayStation maker is betting big on ports of its games on Windows PCs, a market where console rival Microsoft is already a dominant player.

Nearly half of those subscribers had three or more subscription services in Q4 2021, according to a Q4 2019 to Q4 2021 CivicScience survey of US adults ages 18 and older. Of US gamers, roughly a quarter have a game subscription service and/or game cloud streaming service, according to February 2022 data from SurveyMonkey.

US smartphone gamers will spend $18.83 billion on virtual goods this year, a massive sum compared with the $0.78 billion they’ll spend on subscriptions. These intangible assets make up a growing industry in the gaming world, especially as more companies—from Nike to Spotify to Chipotle—enter the metaverse via games like Roblox.

Consolidation in the video game industry isn’t over: Electronic Arts is reportedly looking for a buyer or to merge with another media firm.

Some 3% of US adults have already purchased real estate in a metaverse environment, and a further 8% are interested in staking their claim on a digital land plot. That said, more than half of US adults have never heard of virtual real estate, indicating we’re still a ways out from society going meta.

Gaming app publishers are more likely to experiment with alternative monetization routes. According to an October 2021 survey by AdColony and Fyber, 39% of gaming app publishers worldwide monetized via in-app purchases, compared with just 6% of nongaming apps.

Gamers want to see creative ads that are seamlessly integrated into gameplay. Some 41% of US gamers ages 18 to 34 would like rewards for devoting time and attention to in-game ads. Meanwhile, 32% believe ads should never interrupt a hardcore gamer’s flow.