MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Each month we work with our recruitment partner Amiqus to find the answers to the burning questions within the games industry.
This month’s question is: What was the one event/product/announcement in 2018 that you think will have an impact on the industry for years to come?
Andy Payne
Founder, AppyNation
"For over 40 years, the UK has been a leader in the global video games industry. And yet we have never had a permanent place in which to celebrate the creative achievements and cultural impact of video games. So it is fantastic that the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield has opened, giving us that permanent home. 2019 will see a packed programme of activity celebrating our video games culture as well as making incredible archive material available to the public for the first time."
Stefano Petrullo
Founder, Renaissance PR
"2018 can be seen as one of those transition years that happen every five year cycle in our industry. Personally, I welcome the new strategy of Microsoft. Acquiring new studios, building on Game Pass, rumours of new hardware within the Xbox family are exciting. Pairing this with crossplay and incredible IPs like Forza Horizon and I believe we will have a really amazing future for all console players and gamers in general."
Julian Jones
CEO & Founder, Sunrise Games
"Being mobile games focused, 2018 for me has been about the sector still witnessing incredible evolution and change, with Fortnite’s highly successful entry (invasion) from console, the Voodoo and Gram Games transactions validating ad-funded games, and some of the big mobile developers finding it tough going."
Oli Welsh
Editor, Eurogamer
"The announcement and first details of Google and Xbox’s game streaming platforms were definitely the most consequential events for the future of the industry. Although I don’t think streaming will completely stamp out local gaming, I do believe it will fundamentally change how people play games, how they pay for them and how they view gaming platforms. There are still many challenges to overcome but it’s increasingly apparent that only big tech giants have the infrastructure to make it happen, so it should mark a big power shift within the industry too."
James Kaye
Director, Big Games Machine
"VR has been teetering on the edge of becoming the ‘next big thing’ for the games industry for a while now and this year has been a pivotal one for VR in several ways. In June, Microsoft announced that it was abandoning any plans to support VR and mixed-VR headsets on the Xbox platform. On the other hand, Oculus announced the $399 standalone Oculus Quest, thereby removing the high barrier to entry that has been required to run a full VR rig on a PC. As for Magic Leap… We’ll wait and see on that one."
