It’s a good time to be a games developer. According to one estimate, there are more than three billion — 3.2 billion, to be exact — gamers across the world, and that number is increasing all the time.
If you produce a game, and it’s good enough, then you should find that there’s a large audience for your creation. Of course, ‘good enough’ is difficult to reach. With more than 10,000 games released on Steam alone each year, ensuring that a game stands out from the crowd can be a challenge.
Creative developers tend to use themes that have a history of success as the basis for their games, before putting their own creative spin on them. So, what are the most popular gaming themes and imagery? Let’s take a look.
The End of The World
You can see why game developers enjoy playing around with post-apocalyptic concepts. There are just so many directions in which you can take the theme. While many people assume that these games will just include overgrown weeds and scarce supplies, there are games that upend expectations and really showcase just how creative humans can be. Think of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, one of the most critically-acclaimed games of the past decade in any genre, and Fallout: Las Vegas, which is roundly regarded as one of the best RPGs ever released.
Sweet Treats
Sometimes, it’s not a concept that inspired game developers, but an item. In recent years, we’ve seen an influx of games that heavily rely upon candy-based imagery to create the game’s tone.
This may have been populated by Candy Crush Saga, but the link between candy and gaming runs way back — Yoshi’s Cookie, released in 1992, included plenty of cookies and candy. Today, you’ll find candy everywhere in gaming, including in Sweet Bonanza, one of the most popular slot games of recent years, as well in Pac-Man Party and Cuphead. In fact, the theme is so popular that if you browse the gaming section of your phone’s app store, you’ll almost certainly come across a candy-based game pretty quickly.
Dreamy Worlds
Game developers also enjoy creating dreamy worlds where virtually anything and everything can happen. There’s a lot of freedom that comes from designing a game where the regular rules of planet Earth don’t apply. This kind of world is seen extensively in Super Mario, which takes place in a magical Mushroom Kingdom. You’ll also find it in Yoshi’s Crafted World, which takes place on the fictional Yoshi’s Island, and Rayman Legends, which is set in the Glade of Dreams. These kinds of worlds benefit both developers and players, helping to create landscapes that really capture the imagination.
Real-World Simulations
It’s not necessarily the case that creative game developers love creating games that replicate the real world. But it is certainly true that gamers like them, and that may prompt game developer companies to invest money to make games with such themes.
The runaway success of The Sims — which is still going strong — proved that gamers enjoy playing games that mimic the human experience (albeit with some caveats). Other popular games in this genre include BitLife: Life Simulator and Cities: Skylines, both of which appeal to gamers who are curious about how life and society work.
Everything Zombies
Given how frequently they appeal, including zombies in a game should feel like a cliche. And yet, it’s just a fact that some of the best games in history — and of recent times — have featured those brain-eating monsters. The Last Of Us isn’t just the greatest zombie game ever made; it’s one of the best games ever made, period. Resident Evil (especially the HD remastered version), meanwhile, helped to push the gaming industry forward, proving that it was more than possible for a game to terrify a player. Throw in Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead and Dead Island 2, and you have a theme that packs a powerful punch.
