Technology is five years ahead of where it thought it would be.
That’s a common sentiment, echoed from all corners of the market, from bloggers to Microsoft’s Simon Crownshaw. However, with transformation comes the reassignment of priorities - it only takes a winding back of the clocks to realize this. Back in the 2000s, big businesses simply focused on big ideas; after all, this was the time when the CIO became a sought after position.
Now, the reassignment of priorities reared its head again. With the pandemic upending years of corporate tradition, new technologies have arisen. Those types of tech that focus on how customers experience reality will be the most important going forward. Gaming, of course, has noticed this coming trend.
By looking at the LinkedIn Feed, it’s easy to find a common thread among CEOs and COOs. A return to the office brings a lot of headaches. Managing hybrid schedules between remote work and its opposite is key to a lot of companies right now. So, they’ve turned their gaze toward remote-friendly job positions. Keywords like “hybrid remote lead” and “remote cover lead” have been popping up on search engines, according to Forbes.
Over the course of these two years, the scope for remote tasks has amplified. This as businesses attempt to create work models that consider multitudes of remote workers, while maintaining the status quo. Policies continue to shift, of course, but it seems clear that many individuals are interested in keeping themselves at their home-office. As such, it is important for CEOs to consider ways in which remote work can still act as a direct influence on growth margins.
This breakthrough in working relationships isn’t only limited to traditional work organizations. For years, the gaming industry has been considered a niche market. From its inception in the 1980s to even the mid 2000s, games were part of a side-hobby that was only lucrative to certain companies. Even when Microsoft launched the Xbox, it wasn’t something that would cut its way into the mainstream media. Now, however, streaming services have allowed for the kind of experience gaming tycoons have been longing for decades.
Averaging about 111,000 viewers, games like Fortnite have opened up the floodgates for a plethora of businesses to invest. The way that the pandemic lockdown has influenced streaming is undeniable. Back in 2019, the number of hours viewers collectively watched streaming gaming channels was 3.6 billion; now that number has increased to 8.8. With gaming featuring so much in mainstream media’s attention, it’s impossible to imagine a world in which it doesn’t affect the way in which viewers consume entertainment.
With the advent of the metaverse, companies from every sector are trying to jump in. The music industry admires the possibility to create live venues on a digital platform. While marketing sees it as a way to analyze unified data. In essence, gaming platforms are now amongst the privileged businesses that have the opportunity to design unified social media communities that accelerate immersive experiences.
With the advent of the metaverse, companies from every sector are trying to jump in. The music industry admires the possibility to create live venues on a digital platform. While marketing sees it as a way to analyze unified data. In essence, gaming platforms are now amongst the privileged businesses that have the opportunity to design unified social media communities that accelerate immersive experiences.
This isn’t a unified view, of course. Ken Kutaragi, creator of the original playstation, told Bloomberg his very explicit views on the metaverse, seeing it as a bad idea. His opinion stems from the fact that the technology necessary for this to be a reality is too cumbersome for the modern user. The headsets necessary to include virtual reality into the conversation being the most obvious sticking point.
CEOs and CTOs across the globe would do well to gauge their understanding of this technology. With chip shortages becoming an underlying problem in manufacturing, ideas like the metaverse might not become consumer-ready until a few years down the road. It’s an investment, but the question remains on whether it’s worth taking the risk at the moment.
On the other hand, multiple changes are on the horizon. Intel, for one, is willing to invest $20 billion in a chip manufacturing complex in Ohio. All in a bid to make the U.S. chip-competitive. While it is still a ways off a fully virtual reality, it’s a start. Netflix and Amazon’s interest in building a gaming unit dependent on their already titanic streaming capabilities demonstrate one fact: gaming as a service is becoming too big to ignore.
Microsoft’s recent announcement to buy Activision Blizzard speaks clearly about the metaverse influence. By unifying many gaming services such as Halo, Call of Duty and Candy Crush under one company, gaming as a service will undoubtedly undergo irrevocable changes.
Investors might not know where this perfect storm of ideas might lead them, or even when they’ll fully materialize. And yet, this is the beginning of a myriad of opportunities for young upstarts to start understanding the ways in which the tech market functions and responds to change.
Teravision has over 18 years of experience researching and acting on the tech market, working alongside successful companies and bringing much-needed input to nascent projects. If you feel in need of assistance on course correction or the way to manage your resources, contact us.
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