8 Terrifying Facts & Predictions About The Future Of Gaming

7. Fact: Single-Player Games Are A Calculated Risk

The gaming industry is bigger than ever today; far larger in scope and appeal than any other point in time, and that goes quadruple for the amount of revenue being made.

Thing is though, a lot of that revenue is coming through third-parties, and through "Games as a Service" titles like Fortnite, Apex Legends or GTA Online.

Yes, a God of War, Spider-Man or other dedicated single-player experience still makes a ludicrous amount of cash, but it's nothing compared to the literal billions I mentioned in the last point, or something like GTA Online's $5 million a day.

When it comes to single player games, various factors are now at play:

1. Does the publisher/developer in question favour monetisation over a finite story with finite mechanics?

2. How well has development been planned, and does going over budget significantly now impact a post-launch recurrent spending model? If that is the case, how much does it affect the story being told?

3. Why is the publisher/developer in the industry at all? If it's only for the money, single player stories simply don't have the means to make as much cash as any 'Games as a Service' release.

Thankfully, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Ninja Theory's Hellblade set out to prove you could make a triple-A looking game with a modest, controlled and calculated budget. The dev pulled that off and Hellblade stands tall as an example of how to "do single player" without breaking the bank on the dev or consumer side.

Going forward though, with so much money up for grabs if your "service game" finds its audience, we're seeing far, FAR more companies roll the dice, hoping for the biggest rewards.