Costa Rica is a beautiful country, and while there are many stunning natural sights to see and places to enjoy, one of the favored ways to kick back and relax is gaming. Be it through a computer, console, or mobile phones, many people in Costa Rica enjoy gaming. Having developed games like Fenix Rage and Micromon, as well as boasting an established eSports league, video games are on the rise in the country, with trends starting to be more influenced by the gaming trends of massive international markets.
Some games catch on like wildfire across the globe, regardless of their country of origin, so we’re looking into some of the newest international gaming trends to see if any will be coming to sweep across Costa Rica.
Will MOBA’s rise with mobile gamers in Costa Rica?
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Mobile gaming is becoming the dominant force in the global gaming industry, with more and more people discovering the ocean of games that are conveniently available through mobile phones. In Costa Rica, puzzle and causal mobile games tend to dominate the charts, but given the growing and established eSports scene, Costa Rica gamers may turn to popular mobile multiplayer online battle arena games, as has happened in China.
In 2018, it was found that there are more mobile gamers in China than there are people in Japan and the USA combined. With over 450 million mobile gamers, it’s easy to see why developers are trying to break into the market. The biggest game in China is Honor of Kings, which is a MOBA, reflecting the nation’s obsession with eSports titles like League of Legends and DOTA 2. In Costa Rica, the Liga Tica de Leyendas is the nation’s premier League of Legends competition and grows in popularity every year. As more people get into eSports in Costa Rica, more may also turn to similar MOBAs via their mobiles.
Rise in iGaming with strong tourism numbers
While the native gaming community is buzzing, there’s no denying the strength of the tourist gaming community which visits Costa Rica every year. Just a few years ago, Costa Rica’s tourism growth was noted as being well above the global tourism growth average, signaling how popular the nation has become. Among the biggest forms of gaming which tourists indulge in is that of online casino gaming.
The iGaming industry, particularly the online casino sector, is huge in many nations across the world, especially Canada. The scene is so big that websites are built with the sole purpose of delivering reviews on popular online casinos. While there isn’t any regulation governing online gambling in Costa Rica, it is known that residents cannot partake in iGaming, but tourists can, provided that their bets are never placed with a Costa Rica-based operator.
The next handheld craze
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Handheld gaming is one of the more popular ways to game in Costa Rica, with the Nintendo 3DS being a big hit and mobile gaming on the rise. So, it should come as no surprise that the innovative handheld-console hybrid, the Nintendo Switch, is also popular. Since selling out before its release in some stores of Costa Rica, the Switch has gone from strength to strength with great games. The latest exclusive release for the game may also be a huge hit.
Avengers: Endgame, and the MCU as a whole, has been a global hit, with fans in Costa Rica looking forward to the nationwide re-release on August 8. Before then, gamers can sink into the newly released Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on the Switch. The game features over 30 playable superheroes from the Marvel universe and is already rumored to be among Nintendo’s top three best-selling games of 2019 despite, at the time of writing, only being out for a few days.
Look for more people in Costa Rica to start looking to mobile MOBAs, international online casinos, and the new Marvel game to enjoy in their downtime.
