The gaming industry is actively developing, despite the pandemic and the economic crisis provoked by it. The volume of the market and the earnings of players in this market are increasing every year. For example, in 2019, companies related to the gaming industry earned $148,8 billion, which is 7,2% higher than a year earlier. Experts predict further growth for almost all sectors of the gaming market, including cloud gaming. By 2023, analysts predict the growth of this segment to $2,5 billion.
But with the communication market, at least in the Russian Federation, everything is much worse. According to forecasts, by the end of 2020, it may decrease by 3%. At the same time, earlier industry players pointed only to a slowdown in growth, the reduction was unexpected for many. Now the situation has worsened as operators have lost revenue from international and domestic roaming. Sales in cellular retail decreased by a third, plus network maintenance costs increased due to traffic growth. Therefore, operators are starting to offer additional services, including cloud games. Cloud gaming for operators is a way to get out of the crisis.
Operator problems
Since the onset of the pandemic, many companies have updated their forecasts. For example, Megafon, instead of revenue growth in 2020, expects negative figures. According to forecasts by MegaFon experts, market losses due to falling profitability will amount to approximately 30 billion rubles. The company has already announced the loss of part of its income from roaming and mobile communications.
In ER-Telecom, they talk about a possible decrease in the performance of the consumer segment by 5%, in the corporate segment this figure is even higher - the losses will amount to 7-10%. The company talks about the need for infrastructure development and new proposals.
The main reason for the problems of operators is the desire of users to save money in a crisis. So, users refuse additional SIM cards and switch to cheaper tariffs. In the second quarter of this year, part of Russia's subscribers may completely abandon wired Internet in favor of mobile, or at least switch to inexpensive tariffs due to financial problems.
What about games?
As mentioned above, everything is fine here. According to Yandex.Market, for example, the self-isolation regime caused a stir in demand for goods for gamers. These are consoles, laptops, gaming chairs, mice, virtual reality glasses. Only by the end of March, interest in gaming products . Usually this situation occurs before the New Year or on the eve of Black Friday.
The cloud gaming market is also growing. So, in 2018, cloud gaming services earned about $387 million, by 2023, analysts . And every year the number of companies that are engaged in the development of cloud gaming is increasing. During forced self-isolation, gamers began to actively use cloud services, which affected the income of providers of these services. For example, the revenue of the Playkey cloud gaming platform . The number of Russian users of the service over the specified period of time increased by 1,5 times, in Italy - by 2 times, in Germany - by 3 times.
Operators + cloud games = way out of the crisis
Russian telecom operators are actively connecting additional services in order to retain existing subscribers, attract new ones and, if not increase, then at least maintain the level of income. One of the promising areas is cloud gaming. This is because they are almost perfectly compatible with the business of telecommunications companies. Here are some of the Russian telecom operators who made friends with cloud services.
Vimpelcom
The company launched a cloud gaming service by connecting several partner gaming platforms to it, . The service is called Beeline Gaming.
The technology used works well, so game streaming goes without any delays or other problems. The cost of the service is 990 rubles per month.
VimpelCom says the following about this: βCloud gaming requires stable internet and high speeds, and these are exactly the aspects on which our investments are focused. Cloud gaming is one of the brightest examples of 5G user cases, so working in this direction is a good start for the future.β Can not argue.
MTS
Company in the field of gaming based on the technologies of three domestic companies: Loudplay, Playkey and Drova. Initially, MTS planned to conclude a partnership agreement with GFN.ru, but in the end this service refused to participate in the project. A subscription to the gaming service appeared in the operator's mobile application back in May. Now MTS is working on creating a marketplace for cloud services.
The cost of the service is 1 hour for free, then 60 rubles per hour.
Megaphone
The telecom operator signed a partnership agreement with Loudplay back in February this year. Users are offered two tariffs - for 3 and for 15 hours. The cost is 130 and 550 rubles, respectively. Both packages give access to several pre-installed games - Dota 2, Counter Strike, PUBG, Witcher 3, Fortnite, GTA V, World of Warcraft.
According to the operator's representatives, the launch of its own gaming service makes it possible to attract new customers. In addition, Megafon entered into a partnership agreement with Blizzard Entertainment, the studio that created Overwatch, World of Warcraft, StarCraft and other video games.
Tele2
Well, this telecom operator has entered into a partnership agreement with the gaming service GFN.ru and Playkey. Interestingly, Tele2 plans to develop a gaming service based on 5G - its representatives said that they consider fifth-generation networks to be an incentive for the development of a large number of cloud services, including cloud gaming. In February on Tverskaya, in Moscow, . Unfortunately, GFN was not available then.
As a conclusion
Cloud gaming seems to have become a full-fledged major participant in the gaming market. Previously, they were the lot of geeks, but now, in cooperation with telecom operators and other companies, cloud gaming has begun to develop rapidly.
As for telecom operators, for them, cooperation with cloud gaming providers is a great way to increase revenue and increase customer loyalty. The launch of new services does not cause any particular problems - after all, they work on the basis of partner platforms that have been debugged for a long time and work as they should.
Cooperation with telecom operators is also beneficial for partners, since in doing so they reduce their costs for attracting users due to the traffic of operators. Accordingly, cloud gaming service providers receive free promotion, the opportunity to popularize their product.
Thanks to such cooperation, the cloud games market in Russia, according to experts, will grow by 20-100% a year. The introduction of 5G will also help the development of this market.
Source: habr.com