Augmented & virtual reality trends

MEDIA AND BROADCASTING

Article | June 14, 2021

Those who have been following MIDiA’s games coverage for a while will have seen our posts about the growth problem of esports and suggestions around putting focus on the entertainment angle, rather than just on the sports angle, in order to most effectively capitalise on the opportunity. We have known for a while that esports viewers are only a subset of the broader games-related video viewing audience.We also know that esports audiences enjoy live entertainment in general, more so than many other entertainment consumer segments. MIDiA’s Q1 2021 consumer survey enabled us to dive deeper into how this opportunity can be approached. As a part of our upcoming Esports Viewer Dossier 2021 update, we have looked at the esports viewers, in comparison to consumers who say they watch games-related videos but not esports. The former represents the current state of play, while the latter represents esports’ potential audience growth opportunity.

Article | April 14, 2020

Since their foundation in the 1970s and 80s, video games have moved from fringe interest to a major media staple. The industry has enjoyed huge revenues from dedicated fans, especially over the past few months, and the growth shows no sign of slowing down. Gaming is also an industry renowned for its commitment to innovation, adopting technological developments and spawning a fair few of its own. Chief amongst technological developments over the last decade has been blockchain technology, the new system of trading and ownership built on transparency and decentralization, the standard-bearer of which is the digital currency.

Article | June 13, 2020

The virtual reality market has been hailed as the "next big thing" for decades, but VR has repeatedly disappointed consumers with mediocre hardware products and software experiences. But in recent years, a wave of refined devices narrowed the gap between consumer expectations and reality. The VR market's future has yet to be written, but investors who believe in this budding market should consider buying these four tech stocks. Sony's PlayStation VR is the best-selling VR headset in the world with over 5 million shipments since its launch in October 2016. That only represents a sliver of Sony's installed base of 110 million PS4s, but that foothold has encouraged developers to produce more stand-alone VR games and add-on experiences for PS4 games.

MEDIA AND BROADCASTING

Article | June 22, 2021

The appointment of Lina Khan on June 15th to chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is poised to be a transformational one in the history of the world wide web. Khan came to prominence with an article in the Yale Law Journal, Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox, which identified the paradox of hegemonic tech service providers which bypass the US’ strict competition laws by offering lower prices to the end consumer. Under US antitrust law, the driving indicator of market monopolies are higher prices for the consumer – under this strict definition, none of the tech majors which dominate the digital economy are monopolistic. Indeed, some such as Alphabet and Facebook do not even directly charge the end user for their services. So, while both Google and Facebook dominate the global digital ad market, making an antitrust case against them under the current 20thcentury era regulatory framework is nigh on impossible. However, the absence of meaningful competitive challengers to these two incumbents in search and social advertising over the previous 15 years, despite the lucrative high margin business opportunities, implies that the competitive market is not performing according to classical economic theory. Khan has built a subsequent career on trying to square this circle, and now the Biden Administration has empowered her as the key instigator of the sweeping regulatory update required for a digital-first century.