Video-game players are returning to an old technology to get their dopamine fix: websites.
While much of the US$189 billion video-game industry is stagnant or shrinking, the appetite for web-based games like GeoGuessr and chess is soaring. Sales for such titles – advertising and the sums players spend on in-game items – were expected to triple from 2021 to 2028, reaching US$3.09 billion, according to data from Google and Kantar, a market researcher.
The reason is simple: for time-pressed people, visiting a website – whether on a PC or a mobile phone – is fast and easy. No one has to boot up a console or download an app, and games can be picked up at any time, at home or between work shifts. Game creators can keep more of their proceeds by cutting out revenue-skimming app store owners and by attracting their own advertisers.
“Newcomers are coming to the web,” says Dmitry Kachmar, founder of the web-games company Playgama, an online mall for browser titles that is based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Developers “don’t need publishers. It’s easier to get traffic,” he says.
