THE DEEP AND DARK SIDE OF THE GAMING INDUSTRY
By: Niketha Sabesan
Tags: Cybercrime, Games, Industry, Gaming

THE DEEP AND DARK SIDE OF THE GAMING INDUSTRY

The Gaming Industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in this current world. Video games and online gaming are some of the most popular forms of entertainment. This industry triggers every single one regardless of the age bar. The game designers should not only be talented, but they also have to be innovative to compete with their other competitors in this fast-growing sector.

But every sector has a dark side. What’s the darkest side of this gaming industry?? Come let’s dig in through the unrevealed shadow of this Industry.

Struggles faced by a game designer

A game designer’s life revolves around the game and until it’s fully designed. They are recruited according to their programming and innovative artistic design. The evolution of this industry lies in the hand of those well-talented gamers too. Over the past 20 years, technical advancement and growth have been crazy. This makes the game designers more stressed to compete with the developing world and its technologies. They sit at the same place for a long time and work all day to complete the deadlines. They require prior knowledge in coding, modeling, and texturing. The worst part is 99% of the projects would be disapproved and never be touched. This demotivates some dedicated game designers who are stuck in that project for almost 30–40 hours. “Crunching” is the term referred to when a game developer works for longer hours to meet the deadline. Although there are lots of opportunities in this sector, they hire only experienced designers so that it makes the production work easier.

The Unrevealed Gambling

The gaming industry has always tested its gambling nature. Scratch card games, online betting, bingo, Casino lotteries, and so on. They somehow attract gamers through the various marketing skills discussed. It is unrevealed gambling in the backend. A video game that features loot boxes, where players can spend money and access unknown game features. Another example is using an Electronic gaming machine that seems to have an element of skill, but the reality is they attract young participants through this and keep gambling.

Marketing and outreach

Gamers design the game according to the new world’s requirements with different technologies. But how do they outreach the games to the gamers? How do they make all people from a 3-year-old to 50 years old to sit with their mobile throughout the day?

The gaming company will tie up with other trending sites like Youtube, Twitch, Tv, Blog, and podcast sites. Those sites will be paid by the company per featured advertisement to promote their new venture. Phonepay, Paytm also promotes their product insisting their users download the app. So these sites will be paid for each advertisement and outreach becomes easy. Running paid campaigns and spamming in social media like Facebook, Instagram, Linked-in, telegram, and messenger. Google takes all the data from the app’s store. Apps appear on google search, associated search network, and Youtube. Cross-promotion with other games also helps. Some games allow you to buy game-in-game currency to buy real money which also attracts gamers.

Games like Freefire give away their character skin for real money. They make the default character to be unattractive and tempt the users to purchase the newly released one’s. Doto-2 emerged as a profitable and biggest computer gaming in recent days. This game is also known for its betting. Some video games give free access for a few days and then insists you pay for them. Some games ask for your email address, phone number, or Facebook id. Which seems to be secure but it is not. Few untrusted gaming sites or applications may misuse your credentials. They may sell your details for money.