Year in review — Video games in 2022: Massive mergers and peculiar portables 2022 also saw the death of Stadia and the birth of gaming labor unions.
Kyle Orland – Dec 26, 2022 12:00 pm UTC EnlargeAurich Lawson | Getty Images reader comments with 0 posters participating Share this story Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Before we get on to the list, don’t miss this year’s Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes. You can win part of nearly $2,000 in prizes, including limited-edition gaming collectibles, all while helping out a good cause. Entries are due by January 3, 2023, and there’s no purchase necessary. Thanks in advance for your entry!
Gamers, and the game industry as a whole, can be a little too focused on what’s next. Newly released blockbusters can fade from the public consciousness in a matter of days, while the “next generation” of console hardware or a highly anticipated, years-in-the-making sequel can dominate the headlines.
In that kind of environment, it can be useful to review the major trends shaping the industry over a period longer than a few days. Looking back at the big gaming news of 2022, a few clear storylines emerge. Big game publishers get even bigger
If there’s one trend that defined the game business in 2022, it was giant companies acquiring one another to get even more gigantic. This was the year major conglomerates spent major money to fill holes in their portfolios, like Sony spending $3.6 billion for Destinymaker Bungie; Take-Two spending $12.7 billion for Farmvillemaker Zynga; or the Embracer Group scooping up parts of Square Enix, Limited Run Games, and more.
Further ReadingMicrosoft set to purchase Activision Blizzard in $68.7 billion deal [Updated]But one proposed merger stood out above them all; the $68.7 billion marriage proposal that Microsoft offered to Activision Blizzard back in January. The move could be seen as an opportunistic one for Microsoft, since Activision’s market value fell quite a bit amid 2021’s many harassment and discrimination scandals and investigations. It’s also an acquisition that could offer beleaguered Activision CEO Bobby Kotick a golden parachuteto escape the turmoil. Enlarge / Taking a close look…Aurich Lawson / Ars Technica
The major concern for gamers after the announcement was whether or not Activision franchises like Call of Duty would still be allowed on PlayStation and other non-Microsoft platforms. Microsoft has tried to tamp down those concerns with a series of increasingly fervent promises that it doesn’t want to lock Activision’s games to the Xbox.
Further ReadingFTC files suit to stop Microsofts $69 billion Activision purchaseThose assurances so far haven’t proven enough for Sonyor for antitrust regulatorswho now seem poised to put the proposed merger in serious jeopardy. After prodding by US senators, the Federal Trade Commission officially filed suit to block the merger, citing antitrust concerns. Regulators in the UK and the EU are also in the midst of serious investigations that could lead to similar attempts to stop the merger.
Despite all the drama, the markets currently seem relatively confident that the deal will go through. Advertisement The year of weird portables Enlarge / Steam Deck size comparison with Nintendo Switch.Sam Machkovech
For decades now, portable gaming has been dominated by a single company: Nintendo. After the death of Sony’s PlayStation Vita, for years no one has even bothered releasing portable gaming hardware to challenge Nintendo’s Switch or the popular mobile gaming devices in everyone’s pockets.
2022 was the year that this started to change in a big way, as a number of companies pushed some decidedly off-kilter gaming portables. It started with the Analogue Pocket, which technically launched in late 2021 but started shipping in great numbers to pre-order customers this year. Out of the box, the Pocket’s solid industrial design and high-end screen make it great for replaying thousands of cartridges from Nintendo’s classic Game Boy and Game Boy Advance lines. But it wasthe introduction of new emulation cores this year that really turned this FPGA device into a must-have for retro gamers.
Further ReadingSteam Deck: The comprehensive Ars Technica reviewThis was also the year Valve got into portable hardware. The Steam Deck has been at or near the top of Steam’s own sales charts since its launch, even as initial supply shortages have given way to wider availability. The hardware has some limitationsscreen quality, battery life, sheer bulk, and Anti-Cheat compatibility among them. Still, the Linux-based device has proven “good enough” for putting thousands of “Deck Verified” or “Deck Playable” titles in PC gamers’ hands. No wonder Valve is already talking about a follow-up.
Further ReadingReview: Playdate earns its $179 price tag with cute design, memorable games [Updated]On the other end of the mass market spectrum, the quirky and delayed Playdate used 2022 to prove that portable gaming can be cute, lighthearted, and fun. The bright yellow portable doesn’t even have a backlight or a color screen, but it does have a novel crank controller on its side and a wide variety of inventive indie games powered by a robust homebrew community.
This year also saw a couple of companies releasing dedicated portable hardware focused on the streaming gaming market. Logitech’s G Cloud and Razer’s Edge 5G pair generic dual-stick controls alongside a generic, Qualcomm-powered Android device, allowing for easy access to various streaming services and classic emulators. It’s too early to say whether these devices will find a significant market that’s not served by existing smartphone controller attachments. Regardless, their mere existence helps cement the fact that handheld gaming in 2022 is not just for Nintendo anymore. Advertisement NFTs? Gamers say “No f’ing thanks” Enlarge / NFT games like Axie Infinity served as a proof-of-concept for the “pay-to-earn” model.
As 2022 began, large portions of the game industry seemed poised to go all-in on NFTs and their promise of “unique,” sellable digital collectibles, either as in-game items or glorified trading cards. Bolstered by stories like Peter Molyneux’s startup raising $54 million in NFT sales in a single week, companies like Square Enix, Konami, and GameStop were just some of the biggest names to tease their big NFT plans early in the year. And while companies like Sega were publicly wary, Ubisoft was actively defending the in-game NFT program it launched in 2021.
Further ReadingHow did a hacker steal over $600 million from a crypto gaming blockchain?As the year wore on, though, the bloom started to come off the NFT rose in a big way. Axie Infinityonce held up as the prime example of a successful “play to earn” gamesaw its economy all but collapse before a major crypto hack wiped out any remaining confidence that was left in the game or its crypto tokens. GameStop’s NFT marketplace eventually launched to slow sales that got even slower as time went on, though it proved a boon to scammers selling unlicensed games. Ubisoft, meanwhile, demurely paused its own NFT sales and later tried to pretend it was never all that interested in the space.
Further ReadingGame dev group says addressing NFT gamings ethical issues is a priorityHigh-profile failures like theseand a wider collapse in crypto and NFT prices in generalled to a massive vibe shift away from NFTs among many game companies. Games from Eve Online to Minecraft to Grand Theft Auto explicitly rejected the use of NFTs, at least in part because they had already built highly lucrative in-game economies wthout blockchain technology. The International Game Developers Association said it would take a “stronger stance” on the ethics of NFTs. And Sony seemed to go out of its way to note that its new line of PlayStation digital collectibles didn’t use crypto or the blockchain in any way.
NFT gaming still has plenty of proponents, and there will still be investors willing to place large monetary bets on the still-unproven space in 2023. But as the year concludes, there are fewer and fewer people who seem publicly confident that blockchain-based gaming items will power the “next big thing” in the industry. Page: 1 2 Next → reader comments with 0 posters participating Share this story Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Kyle Orland Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Email [email protected] // Twitter @KyleOrl Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Related Stories Today on Ars
