How Voice technology is revolutionising the Indian socio-gaming sector

Years ago, if you were talking to someone while playing a game, chances are they were sitting right next to you. Think about the popular online multiplayer games- none of them had built-in voice communication. They were meant to be played effectively with only text chat or nothing, as was the case in most games back then. These days, games like Ludo and Fortnite have become the new shopping malls, places where people can virtually talk and hang out while battling other players online. Discord has gathered hundreds of millions of users who use its text and voice chat features to connect with gaming communities all over the world. Nowadays some games even support voice chat natively. The bottom line is that voice communication is quickly becoming a core part of the gaming experience.

A lot of the existing apps focus on connecting strangers and providing a place for them to socialize. They can find lots of interesting people and by sharing common interests, they will always have things to talk about. It’s nice to talk to strangers who are willing to listen to your stories, and be patient and supportive, whether it’s silly or sad things in your life. And audio chatting, being a very efficient mode of communication, helps tremendously in this regard, as compared to attempting to connect solely via text messages.

While COVID-19 has undoubtedly increased the need for people to play together, we believe that it has merely accelerated the move towards greater inclusion of social features that have been growing pre-pandemic. Looking at the sheer volume of features and events, it is clear that this is ushering in a new social era in mobile gaming.

When looking at mobile social gaming features, this can be broken down into two main areas. The first one is the creation of social spaces and experiences in games that lie outside of the core gameplay experience. The second is the inclusion of more social elements within the gameplay, such as guilds and co-op tasks.

This social focus is on the appearance of more socially-based gameplay features in mobile titles. This is especially notable with casual games being enhanced with guild mechanics and co-op gameplay. Regarding co-op style tasks, one can see the rising trend across the top 100 grossing mobile games. The introduction of more and more social features in mobile games results in many benefits, one of them being an increase in retention. This, in turn, drives monetisation via new revenue streams as players can further personalise their avatars and social spaces.

More social features drive a game's marketability and user acquisition because gamers are more likely to invite their friends to play together in games. Whatever the case, with even more virtual events, dedicated social spaces, more social features in casual games, and maybe even deeper immersive tech such as augmented reality, we envisage strong growth in this new mobile social era.

Authored by Muhammed Aqib T P, CEO, Wafa App