Multi-billion Dollar Gaming
GAMING: The Multi-billion Dollar Gaming Industry
We are currently experiencing an historical era as the gaming industry envelopes us. Doug Lowenstein – the President of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), put this perfectly in words by saying:
“Decades from now, cultural historians will look back at this time and say it is when the definition of entertainment changed forever” – Doug Lowenstein, ESA President
The gaming industry has become one of the largest contributing forces behind the growth and stability of the North American economy. Reaping in $9.5 billion (roughly R76 billion) in 2007 – according to the ESA – the gaming industry is just short of making as much money as the film industry (which made roughly $10.2 billion last year). However, computer and video game software sales have tripled since 1996, and with the rate that new games and technologies are being developed, I’m certain that the gaming industry will far exceed Box Office sales in the very near future.
Future Archaeology
Some other interesting figures produced by the ESA are that 67% of American households play video and computer games – the bulk of which believe that it has brought their families closer together. Furthermore, the majority of the statistical results show that teenagers under the age of 18 get permission from their parents before buying any of the gruesome R18 games. If such innocence is indeed truthful, then is the gaming industry all that bad?
I just wish that South Africa would develop a best-selling game that would ‘wow the world’. Surely we have the capability to do so? Yet I suppose our society, which is so charged with being politically correct, would prevent us from developing say a first-person shooter game based on the Anglo-Boer War.
If only that were easier, and our software developers would cease emigrating overseas where they are more appreciated, we could overcome some of our other financial difficulties…
Related post: Too hot to handle: Future gaming & PCs
Links:
The Entertainment Software Association
Video games don’t hurt movie sales if you make good movies
