Top Game Development Technologies and Trends In 2022 and In The Coming Years

The future of game development is constantly changing for years, making the gaming industry one of the biggest industries compared to the film industry. With the growth of advanced technology, you can now see a dramatic change in game development, encouraging businesses to employ new technology to make gaming even more unique than ever. 

A pandemic like a coronavirus (Covid-19) has brought significant rises in the gaming industry as they became the primary source of entertainment in emergencies where people were restricted to going out and maintaining physical distances. 

In 2020, the revenue for gaming increased to $139.9 billion which was $120.1 billion in 2019 as reported by market research firm SuperData. And during that year, 9 out of every 10 people in the US had been greatly influenced by video games.

In addition, Asia holds the largest video game market worldwide, with almost 1.48 billion players in 2021, while Europe comes in second place with over 715 million gamers. On average, an estimated 3.24 billion gamers across the world played video games in 2021.

What’s next? The future of gaming will continue to become mainstream in the upcoming years and you will see significant technologies and trends in the gaming industry. 

Well, in this blog, we will talk about the top notched game development technologies and trends that you should look out for in 2022. Let’s dive in!

Top Game Development Trends in 2022

Let’s have a look at the top game development trends below;

1. Blockchain-Based Gaming

Due to its use of powerful data encryption technology, blockchain has changed the rules for gaming by redefining it as a promising sector with a wealth of opportunities. Thanks to blockchain technology that enabled businesses to protect their applications in a highly secured environment by preventing hackers from accessing or destroying online transactions.

According to Newzoo reports, the overall blockchain game market was valued at $175 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow to $218 billion by the end of 2023. It further expects that people will be more likely to invest approximately $168 billion on in-game purchases by the year 2023. 

This technology helps gaming to make in-game purchases safe and secure. Additionally, blockchain technology will allow players to move from a Pay2Win environment to a Play2Earn environment, improving the safety and security of developers. Thus, Blockchain can be a promising, innovative, and revolutionary platform for building and storing in-game assets. 

2. Cloud-based gaming

Cloud-based gaming refers to gaming as a service or on-demand gaming, where cloud service provides stream content to personal devices, allowing access to the game players. Thereby, it reduces the need for downloading and installing games on a PC or mobile. 

Although having a good internet connection matters a lot here as it requires sending information or content by streaming services to users’ apps or browsers installed on the user’s device. This allows users to render and play the game on the remote server and interact with everything locally on their device.  

Games in the cloud environment have existed for a long time, but the infrastructure is a major obstacle. Tech giants cloud service providers like Google and Microsoft have made it possible to enable global reach, allowing other cloud gaming platforms to rapidly deploy and expand their applications in multiple locations.

Despite its nominal subscription fees, the cloud gaming app helps users develop their sense of recreation and how to live a balanced life. The game development companies have benefited from providing this service. The most appealing feature of cloud gaming is its flexibility.

3. eSports 

eSports has been in trend for years and is rapidly growing in the gaming industry and is described as competitive gaming for professional game lovers and players. Several popular games that are popular with home gamers involve competition between players from different leagues or teams: Call of Duty, League of Legends, and Fortnite, for example. 

Millions of fans all across the world watch and follow these games by attending different live events or directly watching them on TV or through online resources. Streaming services such as Twitch allow users to watch as their favorite gamers play in real-time. 

It was calculated that the global eSports market was worth over US$1 billion by the end of 2021, which was near about 50% growth from the previous year. In addition to this, it is expected to grow by more than US$2 billion in 2022. Therefore, eSports will be an ongoing trend in-game app development in the upcoming years. 

4. Augmented Reality (AR) Gaming

Augmented reality gaming (AR gaming) can be defined as the process of integrating audio content and game visuals, allowing users to view and access the game and its visuals and content in real-time. Augmented reality gaming uses the existing environment to create a playing field, unlike virtual reality gaming, which often requires a large space to create an immersive environment.

On the other hand, you may require specialized VR headsets in virtual reality games, while they are rarely used in augmented reality systems. Users can access and play AR games typically on devices such as smartphones, tablets, and other portable gaming systems.

Pokémon GO is considered the most advanced AR gaming app that comes with a gyroscope, clock, smartphone camera, and GPS, facilitating a location-based augmented reality environment. 

The screen shows the current environment and if there is a Pokémon present, a rustle of grass is heard; a touch of the touchscreen brings up the capture screen. Pokémon are shown onscreen in real-world environments when the AR mode is enabled.

5. Crypto Gaming 

With the advanced blockchain technology, Cryptocurrency has gained massive attention in recent years, enforcing businesses to invest in cryptocurrency gaming. The major changes can be seen with advanced blockchain networks that are being designed and improved with cutting-edge technologies. 

Many startups and investors are embracing blockchain technology for creating games and applications for their gaming industry. Traditional games seem to be centralized because the weapons, skins, and characters- the coding done for a particular game can not be employed in other games. 

On the other hand, crypto gaming allows everyone connected to the game to own a piece of it. If implied for other games, characters and other resources will be able to be transferred to other games, and rewards and purchases made in games will be able to be transferred to other games. 

Furthermore, mobile game developers use crypto to make online transactions smooth and seamless across multiple platforms and industries. 

6. Wearables

Wearables refer to wearable technology, which are electronic devices that people can wear. These electronic devices include sensors used for detecting, analyzing, and transmitting information to users in real-time. Smartwatches, wristbands, and rings are some of the most commonly used wearable devices that make use of wearable technology. 

Wearable devices are often concerned with health and fitness and are rapidly booming the gaming industry. The data-tracking wearables are used to track the gaming session attended by gamers, for example - they help improve the gaming experience for gamers by further using and analyzing this data. 

While some wearables are used to keep track of everything from inspecting, measuring, and monitoring the performance of a game player in real-time. In addition to this, they enhance streaming quality with the help of discrete microphones which improves the overall gaming experience for game lovers around the world. 

7. The rise of 5G

Due to the importance of speed, 5G networks are gaining a lot of traction. The application performance is the most essential aspect that helps in driving more business revenues for game app development companies. Users find high-speed games more convenient and easy to use as they don’t have to wait for minutes to initiate their prize-based competition. 

Further, this kind of factor propels users to make an extra effort for winning every game. As a result, companies are more likely to stay in touch with more players. 

8. Mobile Gaming

Mobile gaming is another yet ever-growing trend in gaming that will continue to increase in the upcoming years due to the growing use of smartphone users all across the world. In 2021, the mobile gaming market was estimated to reach more than 1.5 billion people worldwide. In addition, this phenomenon shows up on the list of the most popular games that are available in both the Google Play Store and the App Store, since anyone can be entertained by mobile gaming whenever they want by installing their favorite games on their smartphones.

Additionally, casual gaming is expected to capture the interest of an increasing number of gamers, as well as other mobile users who are often online for countless hours; this can be the case for casual games. Therefore, it is increasing the chances for other gaming industries to invest in this market niche and take advantage of it. 

As a result, companies and other organizations like them can generate revenue and engage with a wide range of users or gamers.

Top Game Development Tools in 2022

Now that you have understood the top trends of game development, let’s now take a look at the top game development tools used in the gaming industry:

1. Unity

Created by Unity Technologies in 2015, Unity is a cross-platform game engine that offers built-in IDE which stands for Integrated Development Environment. Unity is one of the most popular gaming technologies used for building video games for mobile devices, desktop platforms, web plugins, and consoles. 

It is the most preferred technology widely used in gaming industries. Be it building highly interactive 3D video games or providing a real-time platform, Unity creates its benchmark for gaming. Beginners find it easier to learn and understand documents and guidelines due to its easy-to-use user interface. It doesn’t charge anything for a student or personal use, but it has pricing based on versions that you’re using such as Plus, Pro, and Enterprise versions.

Unity offers unique photographic effects that allow developers to build even more interesting apps. In addition to this, it provides other amazing features like next-gen runtime, collaboration, and graphics rendering making it easier for developers to build astonishing games for various platforms such as Android, Windows, Fire OS, Tizen OS, etc.

2. Cry Engine

Developed by Crytek, a German game developer- CryEngine refers to a game engine that is widely used for developing video games across the globe. It is the most preferred gaming tool due to its graphical outputs. Unity is the best-suited tool when you want to build the game using top graphics and higher visuals. 

CryEngine is the most popular among game developers because of its amazing feature called Flowgraphs which enables developers to create a gaming atmosphere more astonishing and fascinating. Developers use CryEngine for creating graphics, animations, and outstanding experiences and it provides support for all kinds of platforms.

3. GameMaker Studio 2

GameMaker Studio 2 is one of the most popular gaming tools used for creating commercial 2D games worldwide. GameMaker Studio 2 enables developers as well as beginners with a little experience, to build high-quality, user-friendly, and scalable games within the shortest possible time.

This software game development tool provides developers with everything they need to create more complex and large games with powerful features like multiplayer networking, source control, extensibility via third-party extensions, and real-time analytics. 

Furthermore, it offers built-in editors for images, animations, and shades. It is completely based on a subscription model, which might not be the best choice for game creators with a tight budget. 

4. Cocos2d-x

Cocos2d is a free, open-source, and cross-platform game development framework widely used for building games, applications, and other cross-platform GUI-based astonishing programs. Cocos2d has several branches namely Cocos2d-x, Cocos2d-html5, Cocos2d-XNA, and Cocos2d-objc. 

It has a huge community of dedicated game developers and software engineers that widely uses JavaScript. Hangman, Little Alchemy, Polycraft, HexGI, and Swoop are some of the popular games created using JavaScript. It offers a unique set of game development tools used for creating lightweight games having less than 1.5 MB in size. 

The tool offers support for various services such as scene editing, game previewing, resource management,  community support, debugging, and documentation. Cocos2d allows game developers to create games for various platforms like Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, etc. 

5. Unreal Engine 5

Unreal Engine can be a great option if photorealism is a big concern. It is considered to be the industry-leading and massively popular AAA engine, widely famous among various game developers. 

Graphical quality is what sets this engine apart from other tools, as it provides high-quality graphics in a fraction of the time it would take. There’s no need to install separate graphics engines for the graphics features as they are already integrated with this platform. 

6. Godot Engine

Just like Unity, Godot is widely used for creating fully functionally 2D games as well as 3D games. Godot is the most popular, feature-compact, and multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine.

It was specially designed for improving performance and eliminating technical bugs and vulnerabilities to make apps highly safe and secure. Godot Engine provides a drag-and-drop interface that helps developers to better maintain scene elements. Apart from that, it offers a wide range of tools, allowing developers to focus more on creating games without writing much code.

7. Amazon Lumberyard

Developed by Amazon, Lumberyard is a fully customizable and cross-platform tool used for high-functionality game development. One of the greatest benefits of using this framework is that it makes the development more efficient and faster with the help of various AAA quality tools. 

In addition, it offers the most amazing and lucrative features that allow you to access Amazon Web Services without any hassle. You can even use the same to host multiplayer games on its powerful cloud servers.

8. AppGameKit

AppGameKit is considered the most reliable framework for beginners as well as developers who are new and have just started their game development journey. Similar to Java, this framework allows developers to write once and run everywhere. 

Using the same, developers can build the code for Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms. They can further utilize this code for other operating systems like Android and iOS. No doubt, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced one, you can create the best game apps within the shortest possible time using this framework. 

9. Autodesk Maya

The game development industry considers Autodesk Maya to be a heavy hitter, which is the de facto standard for building 3D models and animations. It provides various robust tools that help to simplify more complex and mission-critical animation tasks. 

Features like weight distribution, grease pencil, and joint centering help in visualizing the creations before the development takes place, which saves a lot of time for developers. Furthermore, it allows developers and designers to review the credibility of their designs and make the required changes as they go using real-time analysis.

10. Corona SDK

Developed by Corona Labs, Corona SDK is a lightweight, free, and cross-platform framework best suitable for creating high-quality mobile and desktop applications. This framework allows you to create your project once and publish it to different devices at the same time, including the Android phones and tablets, Apple iPhones and iPad, the Windows/ desktop, the Amazon Fire, the Mac desktop, and even connected TV solutions like Apple TV, Fire TV, and Android TV.

You can build 2D games in no time using the Corona SDK. Therefore, reducing the time and cost of development. 

11. Mixamo 

The Mixamo animation software is a platform for characters and animations from Adobe, allowing users to download animations and characters for free after registering with it. Mixamo animation software allows users to choose characters they like, add animations, save them as a suite, and then download them later. 

Using this software tool, users can quickly add 3D characters in illustrations, animations, skeletons, games, films, and interactive experiences. It offers an auto-rig feature that allows users to preview and download animations along with the characters in no time. 

There’s no need to download the software as it is hosted in the browser, all you need is to have an active Adobe account. In addition, it allows users to explore the repository of thousands of characters and animations, download them, and use them the way they want for their games.

Future of Game Development

The trend of Top Game Development Technologies in 2022 seems to be rising faster in the past few years. Talking about AR/VR (augmented reality/virtual reality), it will continue to rise in the gaming industry. In addition to this, AR/VR will greatly impact the future of game development. 

According to a survey conducted in 2021, the global games industry is expected to reach $218.7 billion by 2024, growing at a sustained rate of 8.7% annually. As a result, the number of game lovers will also continue to rise in upcoming years. 

Conclusion

Thus, it is clear that the above top game development trends and technologies are ruling the gaming industry. Before choosing the game development technology, it is best to look at its pros and cons and select the best tool based on your project requirements and application goals.  

If you own a business and are planning to invest in mobile game app development? Then, I recommend you outsource an on-demand mobile app development company to secure your investments and build an efficient and interactive game app that drives successful outcomes for your business.