2015-2019
The small screens
become the big earners

Never before so many games were made, and never before so many people played them – including those who never had access until now.

Steam went from 379 new games released in 2012 to 8,033 in 2019. The store abandoned any curation attempts, recognizing that they couldn't predict which games would be popular and offering better search tools instead. While competition was tighter, developers also had new options, with Itch.io and Epic Games Store providing alternatives to Steam.

The Kickstarter fever had slowed down but crowd-funding was still a popular tool, and websites like Patreon allowed fans to directly fund all sorts of projects, from Minecraft shaders to adult-only games like Summertime Saga. Big mainstream hits still existed, but now every niche also had games made for them, from narrative-oriented “walking sims” to 90s-inspired “boomer-shooters” and hardcore old-school RPGs.

Technology had also made them more accessible – while enthusiasts now aimed for 4K graphics and ray-tracing, the new integrated graphics chips meant that even a cheap laptop with no GPU could run popular games like League of Legends, DOTA 2, Counter-Strike:GO and GTA V.

Still, nothing was as successful as mobile games. Big hits like Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga were joined by new games with more diverse types of experiences – from Fortnite, Lineage M, Asphalt and Pokémon GO to indie hits like Among Us and Monument Valley – destroying the image of “casual games for moms” and captivating a new, younger audience.

Mostly free-to-play and accessible to anyone with a smartphone, mobiles games also found a new audience in the global south, reaching millions of players in Latin America, Africa, India and Southeast Asia. This is how games like Garena's Free Fire reach numbers like 150 million daily players – building communities in historically-ignored regions.

Meanwhile, the console market faced an identity crisis – new ideas like motion sensors failed to make an impact and sales numbers stagnated, so a “half-gen” was released with the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X, targeting enthusiasts who wanted 4K graphics and smoother framerates. Even with the longest generation ever they were still far from the numbers the PS2 had in the 2000s and failed to reach emerging markets like India and China, signalling that consoles were becoming a niche in gaming and pushing them to seek alternative models like subscription services.

The trend would continue – in 2021 mobile gaming had a 93 billion USD revenue, bigger than the PC and console markets combined. With cross-platform titles as distinct as Fortnite, Among Us and Genshin Impact now delivering the same experience across mobile, PC and consoles, the very way in which we think about game platforms might change.