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"Gamers will fondly remember 2013.\nThe year offered enough for every player to savor: new consoles, Grand Theft Auto V, indie games that stole our hearts and big Kickstarter successes that came to fruition.\nSee also: 10 Most-Watched YouTube Gaming Videos of 2013\nFor those who haven't been following along quite as closely, we've assembled a rundown of the biggest trends that rocked the boat in gaming this year, as well as what to be prepared for in 2014.\nImage: Mashable Composite, Christina Ascani\nNew Consoles\nIt's hard to talk about 2013 and gaming without uttering the phrase \"next-gen.\" Even before the year started, rumors swirled about the new features. After seven to eight years with the same systems, the fervor for change grasped ahold of all gamers. \nThis has been the longest period between console releases since the creation of home gaming consoles in the late '70s. Since the release of Xbox 360 in 2005, market-changing devices like the iPhone and iPad and networks like Twitter and Instagram debuted. Most Americans still had feature phones and were lucky if they could play Tetris.\nIn February, Sony introduced the PlayStation 4, beating Microsoft to the punch by almost three months. The standout theme of Sony's presentation was games, with titles from a wide variety of publishers trotted out. If focusing on gaming seems a little obvious, consider that previous Sony console concentrated on superior hardware or the entertainment prospects of an added Blu-ray player. The initial presentation also focused how the PS4 would be easier for developers to work with.\nMicrosoft announced its Xbox One in May during a presentation that focused on the console's ability to unify the living room. The Xbox One could hook into a cable box and featured video-on-demand applications for every interest. The biggest selling point was the console's ability to multitask, the work of three distinct operating systems. \nBut Microsoft took a firm stand on digital rights management, stating users could only share a game with one other person before it was locked to an account. Following the massive backlash, Sony pounced on this weakness \u2014 even though some predicted Sony was considering a similar move \u2014 and came out in support for used games. This gave the PlayStation 4 a huge boost in popularity. Even after Microsoft backtracked on its DRM requirements, it still dealt with months of consumer confusion.\nBut both consoles, despite lacking strong exclusive titles, have sold well. Both Sony and Microsoft reported a million consoles sold on the first day.\nBattle for the Living Room\nMicrosoft's focus on the living room as a sacred space wasn't misguided. Plenty of this year's big gaming announcements centered on bringing games typically not made for playing on television back to that special shrine. \nThe Kickstarter success of the OUYA console, which raised $8.6 million in July 2012, made its way to backers and the general public throughout the spring and summer, attempting to give mobile and indie game creators a way to easily build games for the TV. As of November, OUYA's game store included 500 offerings; this proved that developers consider it a platform of note. The console requires all games to have a free trial period, though that leads to a low purchase rate as gamers pick and choose among free games without spending money.\nSoftware and game maker Valve also announced its plans to invade the living room next year. Valve's main product, Steam, is the biggest distribution platform for PC, Mac and Linux games, which has 65 million users. Steam will soon grow even larger as a full-fledged Linux based operating system called SteamOS, meant to run on computers that connect to a TV. These Steam Machines will offer the power of PC gaming while still making it easy to play on the television, according to Valve. We haven't seen any Steam Machines yet, but Valve is expected to make a major announcement in CES in January.\nWhy bring PC gaming to the living room? PCs have been more powerful than gaming consoles for a while, and even our next-gen upgrades only match the currently availability. PCs will be able to do more, and also have a wide and varied gaming ecosystem that invite a lot of independent games.\nImage: Mashable, Emil Lendof\nA Banner Year for Handhelds\nDespite the growing ubiquity of smartphones, handheld gaming systems have held their own against their mobile brethren. After a rocky start in 2011, Nintendo's 3DS handheld had an incredibly strong summer leading into fall. As gamers held off console purchases until the next generation cycle, they looked to the 3DS for new entertainment. The handheld was the biggest selling piece of hardware for six straight months of 2013, according to consumer tracking group NPD, thanks to popular releases like Pok\u00E9mon X and Pok\u00E9mon Y, Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. \nVirtual Reality Gaming\nMuch of the excitement in 2013 just whet our appetites for big things to come in 2014. The biggest promise is the potential of virtual reality gaming brought by the Oculus Rift.\n\nThe Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset in development by Oculus VR. After an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign that raised $2.4 million, developers began receiving Rift headsets in March. Since then, we've seen plenty of creative games and uses pop up online, and some games even had Oculus Rift demos at major trade shows like E3. \nOculus VR considers this a public development period, during which  any interested developer can pick up a headset for $300. While no official retail release has been made for the Oculus Rift, other hardware developers are creating virtual reality controllers and accessories like the STEM motion controllers. Oculus VR also attracted support from inside the gaming community; John Carmack, cofounder of id Software, joined the company as CTO in August. \nGaming as a Spectator Sport\nIt turns out gamers enjoy watching others play games just as much as they like playing themselves. Thanks to faster Internet speeds and better computers, it's easier now than ever to share your game footage either live or on demand.\nThe \"let's play\" trend saw a huge uptick on YouTube this year. YouTuber PewDiePie, who creates humorous videos of himself playing games, boasts the most subscribers on all of YouTube. Plenty more people use Youtube to broadcast their playthroughs of games, and at least a dozen successful channels have more than a million subscribers. \nTwitch has become the go-to spot for those who want to watch live gameplay. The streaming platform, spawned from JustinTV in 2011, has now completely overshadowed its creator. Twitch has grown from 23 million unique viewers a month and 300,000 broadcasters in January to 45 million unique viewers a month and more than 700,000 broadcasters in December. This new generation of consoles also allows gamers to stream games with just the click of the button, though Xbox One's promised functionality is still \"coming soon.\"\nImage: Enrique Espinoza/Major League Gaming\nWhile Twitch streams can range serious to casual, competitive gameplay broadcasts were a burgeoning theme of 2013. Major League Gaming led the pack, a hybrid network and game league that hosts daily matches in competitive games like League of Legends and Call of Duty along with four large-scale tournaments a year. MLG's Pro Circuit Championships attract millions of viewers that watch for an average of more than two and a half hours at once, the company said. Overall, the company reported that people watched 54 million hours of video in 2013, compared with 15 million hours in 2012 \u2014 almost four times as much.\nLeague of Legends' popularity in 2013 was unmatched as it swelled to 45 million players worldwide; its annual World Championship in October sold out at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The broadcast drew 32 million viewers around the world, with 8.5 million tuning in concurrently. Additionally, its engagement on Reddit was higher than the release of Grand Theft Auto V or this year's Super Bowl. \nImage: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker \nCasual Games\nEveryone is a gamer now. Whether you use a smartphone, tablet, desktop browser or Facebook, people new to gaming had several entry points.\nThe year's biggest casual success, which bridged cultural and demographic divides, was King's Candy Crush Saga. The game was installed 500 million times on Facebook and mobile devices since its debut on Nov. 15, 2012, and users have played 150 billion individual Candy Crush Saga games, according to figures released by King. The game is free to play, but it limits one's lives and turns in a puzzle, so it's easy to shell out $0.99 to get past a tricky spot. This helps keep Candy Crush at the top of the revenue charts for both iOS and Android every month.\nThe gamer base on Facebook rose from 235 million in 2012 to 260 million this year. A wider variety of games was available on the social network, according to Dan Morris, head of Facebook's Games Division in North America, with a broad representation of genres. Morris said people are playing Facebook games for longer periods and during \"prime time\" hours in the evenings.\nImage: 'Night in the Woods', courtesy Infinite Fall\nEveryone Is a Creator\nGame development opened its doors even wider to the masses this year. Every console maker pointedly discussed indie games; Sony even brought several independent game creators on stage during its E3 presentation. Capturing the buzz around small, unique titles was a major focus.\nKickstarter drew the gaming community's eye in 2012 after several high-profile, multi-million dollar games beat their funding goals. Overall, the crowdfunding platform raised $83 for game projects last year. This year, the Kickstarter numbers for indie games haven't been quite as high, but creators are still bringing plenty of projects there. \nAs of early December, Kickstarter said that 1,756 game projects had launched on the platform, and 381 of those were successfully funded \u2014 about 21%. So far in 2013, $51.5 million has been pledged to video game projects. Interestingly, some of the most successful projects were started by well-known creators looking to make a comeback, such as Megaman creator Keiji Inafune's Mighty No. 9 and Richard Garriot's new take on his Ultima franchise, Shroud of the Avatar. \nIndie creators also looked toward game creation tools that could help them bring products to many platforms at once. One of the main examples is Unity Engine; games built in Unity can play everywhere from phones and tablets to browsers, PCs and consoles.\nUnity CEO David Helgason said its registered user base increased from 1.5 million to 2.5 million in just one year. Unity now has 500,000 monthly active developers, up from 300,000 the same time last year.\n\"While we're proud that some of this growth comes from established developers switching to use Unity, we're confident that a part of this is an index on the growth of new participants in the world of game development,\" Helgason said.\nImage: 505 Games\nA Look Forward\nThis year has set the stage for some impressive changes in the field of gaming. We barely scratched the surface of the power of the new gaming consoles, and as developers spend more time with them, even more creative games utilizing the hardware will come to fruition. Even more thrilling will be the hardware creations from Valve and Oculus VR, or perhaps a small company may completely upturn the world of gaming. It wouldn't be the first time.\nBased on the growth of sharing and streaming services in 2013, we can only imagine the shape it will take in the months to come. Mobile games aren't showing any signs of slowing, but the way gamers pay for that content is changing. More gamers will likely start sharing content as the technical barriers to entry lower, but we could just as easily see publishers flare up over who is earns money from their games. We'll have to wait and see whether the pendulum swings further toward microtransactions. \nWe do know, however, than 2014 will be a more open and disruptive year than ever. In fact, some exciting games and innovations are already in the works. \nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\nImage: Namco/Mashable Composite, Will Fenstermaker"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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