5. The Future of Web Games: Beyond What We Know Today.
Discussion, trends and predictions about the future of Web Games.
When looked critically, for the past 10–20 years, web gaming has not evolved much and it's been on repeat, with little innovation beyond what we saw a decade or more ago, even it’s currently growing again steadily.
This article focuses on a discussion and trend and prediction setting about the future of Web Games.
The Future of Web Gaming
The future of web gaming doesn’t just lie in improving what already exists and it isn't on instant games, current portals, etc. — I believe it’s in reinventing how we think about gameplay, meta game, social experiences / systems, and cross-platform potential.
The next unicorn and even decacorn companies in gaming will come from those who think beyond current models and explore new territories, such as:
🔹 User Experience Innovation: Creating fluid, immersive experiences that feel fresh and intuitive. Imagine e.g., how different types of UI / UX solutions, with what we know today over how social platforms, AI agents, etc. operate on — and how you could build UX innovation throughout those beautiful solutions on the web.
🔹 Social Gameplay 2.0: Combining the best of social media and gaming mechanics to build deeper, meaningful connections and in-game interactions. In connection with above-mentioned UX innovations, there could be things like social media -like fees, etc. that could be build over the web front.
Interested overall about what Social 2.0 can be? Find more about what I’ve written about it from here (https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/8-physiology-and-psychology-how-they):
Above article gives some good ideas definitely for how you could build new types of experiences on the web, when you start connecting the dots. Over these, I see emergent and systemic mechanics having strong potential with social tie-ins.
🔹 New Forms of Play and Multi-Device (Re-)Engagement: Expanding our ideas of “play” and “habit” in web gaming — thinking not just about entertainment, but how games can integrate with everyday routines. Like, in a simple format, how you can engage user over multiple devices and fit gaming into daily routines and life (of course, and ideally, we should make sure players rest and not burn themselves out if we keep them immersed continuously throughout multiple devices — which will be better for longevity for your business and its customers).
🔹 Cross-Platform Opportunities: As already mentioned above (whilst I’ll put this into own section here, for the purposes of trend and prediction separation) designing games that seamlessly move across web, mobile, and other platforms to support habits and routines.
🔹 UA and Distribution Innovation: Building new models for acquisition that work across platforms, with strategies that complement and amplify each other. There are lots of technical depth that can be explored also on this front, from data-driven and machine learning (ML) solutions to user acquisition targeting profiling, and such. Think about what was possible pre-IDFA on mobile, and how the world is now — and, further from that, opportunities on building new types of UA systems, incl. cross-platform potentiam with mobile. Everything would help improving the top of the funnel approach.
🔹 Data Ownership and Insights: Utilizing data with a player-centered focus, driving smarter gameplay design and re-targeting. In addition to web data and user ID (on the web, or on your system / database), you could have with cross-platform tie-ins more data and IDs in use for engagement, monetization and UA, which could transform UA methods further and help targeting / re-targeting users better — not just on one screen / device, but over multiple devices as well. Even one addition that would complement current post-IDFA UA methods on mobile games, top of the funnel UA approach (over which mobile games pretty much need to operate on UA front) could be run on steroids.
🔹 Cross-Platform Payments and D2C Models: Developing seamless payment systems and direct-to-consumer (D2C) channels that make web games more accessible and engaging. This is a topic I’ve written about more here (https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/4-d2c-webshops-in-mobile-games-the):
🔹 Future of Game Design and Live Ops Innovation: By combining all above, we can explore next-gen game design and live ops innovations beyond our current knowledge of such things existing. Like, as an example, meta game features and social 2.0 could be running together with tie-ins, where you could be seeing ‘a social feed’ about player / friends activities, when you’re playing with them in a same world in-game. Furthermore, you could have lots of team, guild and clan systems build over these and mentioned UX innovations. There are lots of depth for everyone to browse — where our imagination is our only limitation.
🔹 Future of Monetization: By combining all above, we can open up innovative monetization opportunities — from D2C to different social / group monetization systems (some of these are covered in the abovementioned article about D2C and Webshops; see more from above link), and more.
Final Thoughts
Today’s web gaming portfolio may still drive good business, but the next major wave will go (or should go — like, really, what we’re seeing now has been invented 10-20 years ago already) beyond this.
Of course, whilst we’re waiting this, I’m happy that Web Games side is again growing, as it helps to diversify the industry more — and leads over time to new innovations and interconnections with existing platforms.
The companies that can innovate in the areas I predict and write about will set a new standard for next-gen web games, creating opportunities and experiences that haven’t yet been imagined — and some of these companies will be the next unicorns / decacorns in the games industry. It would be nice to build something like these myself as well, as/if an opportunity for that comes (I’m currently open for work opportunities).
Who's gonna build (or is already building) this future?