Order 1079275: Entrepreneurship - opportunity analysis video game industry in Australia

JANUARY 2018 95

DATAART

Here’s to the future

2018 will see moves to make gaming more transparent and new technologies taking player experience to the next level. So say DataArt’s Mike Brett and Nikolai Filimonov.

I n 2018 the onward march of new technologies

will continue to transform the gaming industry

from the clicks and mortar starting point of

fifteen years ago. While gamers will see the user

experience changing, the gaming industry itself

will also see large changes behind the scenes.

USER EXPERIENCE The advancement of the mobile device has

transformed the user experience over the years.

More powerful than ever, next year will see the wider

spread of Augmented Reality (AR) gaming segments

on phones, iPads and so on, with rich graphics

technologies, particularly Virtual Reality (VR),

pushing into the marketplace.

The main area of growth for VR

will be in the retail space, where it

will compete with old-school

gaming machines. VR growth at

home and online is currently

impeded by the simple lack of

choice for VR sets on the market.

Therefore, we do not expect the

Virtual Reality gaming market to push into

households or online in the immediate future.

INTERACTIVE LIVE STREAMING Interactive live streaming will continue helping the

eSports industry grow. Gaming companies will invest

their efforts in building strong brands on live

streaming platforms for marketing purposes.

Chatbots will augment the spectator’s experience

and drive the engagement during live streams.

ESports is a huge new industry vertical and in

2018 it will continue growing, specifically with

millennials.

FACIAL RECOGNITION Surveillance systems utilizing facial recognition are

unlikely to see improvement. More interesting will

be any developments in the use of facial recognition

to improve Know Your Customer (KYC). Although in

its infancy right now, KYC-authentication through

facial recognition without human interaction is on

the horizon. KYC is a pain point for any game

company and the implementation of this technology

offers the prospect of creating a seamless, and less

fraught, KYC process.

SMART SPEAKERS Operators are always looking at ways to get to end

users and voice assistance remains a new channel of

opportunity. The onward march of Amazon Alexa and

Google Home will continue, but smart speaker

technology is still in the early stages for gaming

industry application. This is particularly true for

casual users, for whom it’s easier to use a phone app.

BLOCKCHAIN Blockchain has been in a stage of evolution the past

year and 2018 will undoubtedly see increased

adoption of the technology in the iGaming space.

The technology has reached an inflection point, and

is on track to transform the gaming market. In 2018,

although players are interested in more

transparency, this space is highly regulated, and the

impact won’t be seen as much on the user-side but

rather on the operator and regulator level.

Blockchain represents a tamper-proof system that

large companies and startups are both

implementing, with different objectives in mind. We

have seen a variety of new startups like Funfair and

BetterBetting all adopting this revolutionary

technology. This trend will continue with highly

regulated spaces such as sportsbook & casino

operators using it to cut costs, streamline internal

systems, increase security, and enable easy

settlement of transactions. At the startup level,

blockchain will continue to be used in attempts to

disrupt the traditional betting exchange business.

“We do not expect the Virtual Reality gaming market to push into households or online in

the immediate future”

Mike Brett, VP DataArt UK

Nikolai Filimonov, Head of Marketing, iGaming Practice at DataArt

CASINO JAN18 P0_Layout 1 17/01/2018 08:12 Page 1

Copyright of Casino International is the property of Datateam Publishing, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.