Despite the impending global post COVID recession brought about by various factors including the Fed rate increase, Filipino Metaverse game company DRDC [https://www.facebook.com/wearedrdc/] is bullish about future prospects, especially in mobile gaming. In data.ai and IDC’s latest joint report, mobile gaming is expected to reach $136 billion in 2022, or roughly just over 60% of the total $222 billion games market, not counting casino and tabletop games.

DRDC recently soft launched its cross-platform 3D open-world video game called Spirits of Aporia (SOA). Aporia is still in the Alpha stage with select members of the global gaming community participating in testing it. The Aporia game features a world shared by humans and Anima — mysterious creatures with unique personalities, traits, and appearances. The objective is to raise, feed, and train these animated Anima creatures on a player's own ranch, and then face them off against other player's Anima creatures in online battles as they climb to the top ranks of the Aporia Arena.

According to DRDC Global Brand Ambassador Arlan Vicencio, "mobile gaming growth at $136 billion in eight years or 450% is nothing short of spectacular especially when you compare it to console and PC/Mac having grown only by around 25% at $42 billion and $40 billion respectively in 2022. It’s a phenomenon." Vicencio feels that this is due to mobile devices being relatively affordable along with mobile games. "More importantly, you can play it anytime, anywhere," he added.

This growth is especially pronounced in Gen Z audiences and in Asia because of smartphone availability, although other demographics are growing as well. Vicencio added that "gaming is now bigger than movies and music combined."

But above all, Vicencio says that for game companies to succeed especially in a recession, it is the entertainment experience that is paramount. The main mistake of many games, especially some popular Play to Earn (P2E) blockchain games, is to highlight the "earning" potential more, rather than the entertainment value of the game. "The line between entertainment and tech for a video game company is blurry. Notwithstanding the nature of video game development and the digital transformation in the gaming industry, a game per se is an entertainment-first commodity," he said. This was one of the considerations they had in designing their Aporia game.

Vicencio feels that to neglect the entertainment first value of games in favor of how much the player can earn negates their growth potential, which could be a bright silver lining even with an impending recession ahead. “Playing games simply because of the earning potential is unsustainable if the players do not derive real entertainment value from it. Players will simply move on to newer games that offer better returns if that is all that they will get from it” he said.