The Value Engineers The Value Engineers

Game on: Gaming is going next level

The masks are off, the game-face is on… it’s time to play.

The time is upon us for the Next Generation. The Next Generation of Play.  The latest iteration of the console-calling is arriving, with eye-blasting graphics, ear-shattering 4D wrap-around sound and lightning-fast loading.  This is next level.

But this is of course no normal time to release a next-gen. So how are our gaming habits, attitudes, and commitments evolving?

For starters, we’re playing more…  Way, wayyyyyy more. Across all platforms, across all games and genres, and across all gamer-types, Playtime figures are soaring1. And quite rightly so.  Steam, the online game-streaming platform noticed a spooky lack of weekend peaks and weekday troughs after lockdown… because every evening was a ‘weekend’ evening, if you’re at home and looking for entertainment.

We have intense home-working schedules, with limited breaks; we’re not allowed to mix households in many parts of many countries. And we’re looking for cinematic escapism and social play in safe surroundings.

So the arrival of a new generation of consoles, games, and players are hugely anticipated.

PlayStation 5 is staking its claim with “Play has no limits” and you know they’re right. Gamers expect and demand more.

Lenovo’s Legion 7i is promising the highest frame rates among high-end gaming laptops, with Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super (Max-Q) GPU.

Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone 12 has driven Tom’s Guide to conclude that other phone manufacturers “might as well give up now”.

And it’s great to see Riot Games, the LA game developer and esports leader, getting time in the spotlight with their upcoming Wild Rift mobile game.

So gamers are spoilt for choice. Except they don’t have to choose. They are reinvesting their commute fares, their vehicle budgets and their entertainment pots into their hobbies.

To misquote Will Shakespeare, “All this Lockdown is a stage, And all the men and women merely players;  They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”

So grab a controller, some friends and a platform… and press PLAY

  1. (Playtime up 45% in the US in March 2020 – source:statista.com)
By: Simon Stokes

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