San Francisco With the video game developer Zynga, the industry representative presented his figures on Monday afternoon (local time) who could probably look forward to the far-reaching end of the lockdowns worldwide most calmly. Because the group primarily develops mobile games such as Farmville or Word With Friends, which can be played on the cell phone and thus both indoors and outdoors.
Nevertheless, compared to the previous quarter, Zynga had a slight decrease in daily active users (“Daily Active Users”, DAU): Instead of 41 million DAUs, the group ended the quarter with 38 million DAUs. It’s the first drop since the pandemic broke out earlier last year.
Bernard Kim, President of Publishing at Zynga, explains the decline in an interview with Handelsblatt with the unusually high number of users during the time when many people had to stay at home. “We’re seeing a certain normalization,” says Kim. Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, Zynga has nevertheless increased its DAUs by 21 percent.
Although there are hardly any countries in which more extensive lockdown measures apply, long-term growth among gaming companies is unbroken. 40 percent more sales at Zynga, at least six percent at video game publisher Activision Blizzard, even 58 percent at competitor Electronic Arts: There is no sign of a post-corona blues in the industry.
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However, the companies can also make good use of the tailwind. After the Facebook group, which has now been renamed Meta, vaguely announced its intention to develop a so-called “Metaverse” with which the Internet can be expanded to include virtual reality (VR) using devices such as VR glasses, there is a lot of activity in the industry . There are investments to be made.
Metaverse as an opportunity
Because if Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s plan should one day become reality, video games should be one of the first broad fields of application. Individual video games are already being developed specifically for the use of VR devices – even if their prevalence has so far not been comparable to that of consoles or gaming PCs, for example.
Kim still sees great opportunities for his industry. “We recently hired a senior blockchain gaming manager, Matt Wolf,” said the Zynga manager. The group, which partly also offers its games on Facebook, can also imagine working with Meta on Metaverse. “We are definitely reviewing our options.”
Zynga seems to be concentrating primarily on virtual objects initially. Blockchain technology, which is also used for the digital currency Bitcoin or so-called Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), is intended to ensure that certain digital objects in the metaverse, such as clothing or digital tricks, cannot be reproduced at will .
Big investments
Market observers such as John Patrick Lee from the ETF fund house Van Eck are of the opinion that the future of video games lies in this concept. “Every game company that seriously assesses the future of their offerings and how players play games, thinks about the Metaverse,” said the manager of the Reuters news agency.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also announced optimistically in May that there would be a metaverse similar to the science fiction film “Ready Player One”, in which people from distant places come together in a virtual reality. However, it is unclear to what extent the companies share the ideas of meta boss Zuckerberg – or rather do not mean a metaverse that they are developing themselves as a platform.
For example, the game developer Epic Games, which has the blockbuster Fortnite in its program, wants to develop its own metaverse – and has already raised a billion US dollars in venture capital in the spring, including from consumer electronics manufacturer Sony. Compared to Meta, however, the announced amount is rather small: In the current year alone, the Zuckerberg Group plans to invest ten billion US dollars in development – and increase its investments even further.
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