More and more young (and not so young) people enjoy playing online games. The demand for casual video games is so high that even Netflix has recently launched its own video game directory. Other tech giants are also betting on online gaming portals in the cloud, such as Amazon, with its Amazon Luna gaming service, or Nvidia, with its NVIDIA GeForce NOW streaming gaming service.
The video games industry is expected to maintain its recent rapid growth and could reach a value of USD 321 billion by 2026. Millions of new gamers took up video games in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and many people reported that playing games helped improve their mental health and mood.
Benefits of online games
Online browser games allow us to enjoy a wide variety of entertainment immediately. Unlike conventional games or games included in mobile apps, online games have a number of advantages that make them special.
Some of the advantages of online games are:
- There is nothing to install, so we can be playing in a couple of minutes or even less time.
- As we don’t have to download anything to our computer, tablet or mobile phone, we don’t consume any of the device’s resources.
- The offer of Poki type games is gigantic. There is no bigger and more varied catalogue of games than the one offered by this type of online games.
- They can be played in the browser, increasing convenience, privacy and ease of use.
- They are free, which avoids having to spend a lot of money on licences or paid games.
- We can play from any device that incorporates a web browser: smartphones, computers, tablets, chromebooks, smart TVs, etc.
- The video game search engines incorporate categories and filters that make it very easy to find the perfect game for us.
Choose your ideal game
We can find many different categories when looking for our favourite game on a gaming portal. These are some of the main ones.
- Car games: racing cars, motorbikes and all kinds of vehicles are one of the most popular genres of casual online games.
- Sports games: football, basketball, baseball, American football, golf, mini golf and many other sports are available in the catalogue of free games.
- Games for girls: obviously, separating boys and girls is a stereotype nowadays, but usually these types of games are more enjoyed by the female audience. For example, Frozen games, dress up games or other Disney princess games.
- Games for boys: some of the most popular genres for boys are Ben10 games, football games or war games.
- Superhero games: the best Marvel and DC superheroes are available to enjoy with them in some action-packed online video games.
- Fighting games: we can enjoy sport fights, such as boxing, karate, or kickboxing, and also other types of video games, such as futuristic fights or Street Fighter type games.
- Shooting games: these are one of the most popular genres, especially when it comes to multiplayer games. We can use lots of weapons and improve our aim to kill all the enemies.
The future
With a share of global entertainment spending of 6.1% in 2017, the video games sector is expected to account for 11% (almost double in turnover) by 2026.
China and the US have been dominating the sector, between them accounting for more than 50% of video game revenues, but other countries are showing exponential growth to change these figures. Growth in countries such as India, Pakistan and Turkey stands out in particular, at over 20% each year.
