Did you know that, according to the latest research, there are 3.09 billion active gamers globally¹? That means out of every five people in the world, nearly two are gamers!
Although gaming has become a nearly ubiquitous way for us to spend our free time, access to stable, competitive gaming environments is still lacking in parts of the world. As games become increasingly connected and resource-intensive, network performance has taken center stage for many genres of console and PC games.
Read on for a quick overview of emerging market trends, why global demand is growing for game acceleration services, and how Zenlayer can help amplify the reach and effectiveness of these services.
Emerging game markets are booming
In 2022, for example, the Asia-Pacific region dominated the gaming market with an $84.8 billion share of the global $182.9 billion.
Although consumer spending slowed down a bit last year in some mature markets, emerging markets in LATAM and MENA both saw growth at 3.3% and 5.8% respectively².
Lead by Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia, gaming revenue is projected to grow to $3.6 billion in LATAM this year, up from $2.23 billion just five years ago – a 61% increase.³.
In MENA, meanwhile, mobile gaming downloads reached 4.9 billion in 2021, nine times the global average. Here, gaming revenue is projected to reach nearly $2.8 billion by 2026, 56% higher than last year’s $1.8 billion⁴.
A growing need for game acceleration
Unfortunately for gamers in emerging regions, however, local network infrastructure development still falls far behind the pace of modern game development. With the rise of so many platforms and countless online games accessible worldwide, now is the time for game acceleration services to shine.
Game acceleration services employ an arsenal of technology that includes machine learning, VPNs, performance-based routing, real-time monitoring, predictive route optimization, and packet-level optimization to help stabilize the gaming environment for players that live in locations with spotty, poor-performing public networks. Essentially, game acceleration services aim to even the playing field for gamers everywhere.
In order to fulfill their mission and ensure the smoothest gaming experience possible for millions of players worldwide, game acceleration services providers must navigate factors and challenges like:
• Establishing partnerships with game developers and server providers for direct connectivity
• Providing reliable, consistent performance across a myriad of gaming platforms and devices
• Achieving cost-effectiveness while maintaining a global infrastructure and scaling resources to meet fluctuating user demand
These challenges and more can be overcome by partnering with a trusted provider like Zenlayer who offers global edge node coverage, reliable and high-performance networking, and easily scalable infrastructure.
Zenlayer can help you improve and expand your game acceleration service
Zenlayer’s globally distributed edge network, high-speed connectivity, and instant scalability can help your game acceleration service provide seamless gaming experiences with minimal latency, keeping your gamers happy no matter where they are.
Global coverage
Our massively distributed global network, which spans 110+ cities in 50+ countries across six continents, has data centers strategically placed both in key markets and emerging regions. Our partnerships with 5,400+ global peers let you connect directly to game servers worldwide, drastically reducing the distance between players and game servers. This cuts down on the number of hops that data has to travel, which helps minimize latency to ensure smoother gaming experiences for players on your network.
We’re no strangers to gaming here at Zenlayer, which is why we’re so passionate about game performance. Not only are many of us avid gamers, but our clientele includes some of the world’s biggest game developers and publishers in the world. Indeed, Zenlayer is hosting thousands of servers for some of the hottest games on the market today like PUBG, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, Free Fire, and more.
High-speed connectivity
In a previous article, we touched on ping – a word that describes the delay of signals between a player’s device and the game server they’re playing on – and its implications for online games that require split-second decisions and reflexes. In short, high ping can cause significant input delays and disconnections that cost players valuable time, ranking, and even their membership standing.
Zenlayer’s global, private backbone eliminates packet loss to reduce latency and jitter by up to 40% compared to public networks. Our network features built-in redundancy to help improve the uptime and fault tolerance of your game acceleration service by keeping connections stable between players and game servers in the event of network failure. We also employ dynamic engineering to optimize the flow of traffic in real time, which helps distribute your peak-hour traffic to prevent congestion and ensure that all players can enjoy consistently reliable, high-performance gameplay with minimal latency.
Instant scalability
Zenlayer’s suite of cloud computing products can be provisioned within minutes in 60+ cities around the world – perfect when you’re looking to rapidly expand coverage or scale to user demand without waiting months to build out costly additional infrastructure.
Our competitively priced bare metal offerings range from specs like single Intel Xeon E3/E5 Processor with 32 GB of RAM up to dual Intel Xeon Gold Processors with 512 GB of RAM, and our highly customizable VMs start from 1-core with 2GB of RAM and go up to 64-core with 128 GB of RAM. With Zenlayer compute, it’s never been easier to try out a new market, test new services, and acquire new users anywhere in the world.
Scale and acquire new users faster with Zenlayer!
In the age of impatient developers who love pushing the limits of the latest hardware and gamers who demand instant, seamless gaming experiences, it’s vital for game acceleration services to continuously improve the quality and features of their platforms to stay competitive in the market.
Use Zenlayer’s global network of 5,400+ global peers, comprised of the best carriers from each region, to maximize the performance and reliability of your game acceleration service. Keep game and player data close to their source with our edge compute offerings for ultra-low latency and relax with our 24/7 live tech support that responds to your tickets within 15 minutes.
If you’re looking for a partner to help you better serve gamers everywhere, check out how we helped another game acceleration business expand to APAC, read our gaming infrastructure ebook, and talk to a solution expert today!
Resources
¹ https://explodingtopics.com/blog/number-of-gamers
² https://www.gamesindustry.biz/newzoo-revenue-across-all-video-game-market-segments-fell-in-2022
³ https://www.statista.com/statistics/293629/gaming-revenue-latam/
⁴ https://www.businessofapps.com/news/mena-3-game-revenues-to-grow-56-by-2026/
