Mar 25 (PR): All across the world, from India to the US, online gaming has taken over. This is largely due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which led to more people spending time indoors with their smartphones and computers. Another contributing factor is that online gaming has become highly advanced, and now offers better graphics and game modes than any other time in history. 

For the fans out there gaming out there, it’s an incredibly exciting time to be a part of the industry. Currently, there are lots of trends going on (as well as new trends emerging), and this article is going to get you up-to-date on everything. 

Firstly, online casinos are very popular

A lot of gamers are starting to take breaks from the standard console games like Call of Duty. Instead, they’re playing the highest payout online casino. The involvement of real money has proven to be the enticing factor, as it creates more exciting gameplay for the users. 

Virtual Reality (VR) headsets are being introduced

Recently, Mark Zuckerberg and the people at Meta announced the upcoming Metaverse, which is set to be an online social game that you play using a VR headset. It’s not official when the Metaverse will release, but it will almost certainly lead to VR headsets exploding in popularity. 

In fact, moving forward, you can expect to see consoles – like the PlayStation 5 – embrace the concept of VR headsets. Soon, you might even be playing Fortnite and Battlefield with VR headsets rather than traditional controllers, which is something to get excited about. 

Free Games – But expensive loot boxes

Over recent years, a new trend has emerged in the world of gaming: lots of games are now free to download. A great example of this is Fortnite. 

However, there’s a slight catch to free online games – they usually come with expensive loot boxes (which are in-game accessories and features that you can buy separately). 

Although nobody can force you to buy loot boxes, they can be tempting due to the fact that you get the core game for free. This is a current trend to keep your eyes out for, as it can cause many gamers to rack up expensive bills. 

Monitored party chats

On PlayStation and XBOX, online users can enter ‘party chats’ with one another, which are essentially private conversation boxes. 

Before, whenever you were at a party, only you and the other party members could listen to the conversation. However, this has now changed on PlayStation (with XBOX expected to follow this trend in the future). 

Now, PlayStation has the right to listen in to (and record) party chats. The reason for this is because they want to improve their security and reduce cyberbullying – but many people feel that it is an invasion of privacy!

Therefore, moving into the future, PlayStation users can expect their party chats to be monitored. If this is uncomfortable for some gamers, then they will have to use a 3rd party app – like Skype or Facebook Messenger – to communicate with teammates and friends.