1. The Size of the Industry: It’s bigger than you think it is.

The current computer games industry (which refers to computer games, console (ie game machine titles, on-line games and arcade games but not the ‘gaming industry’ which refers to gambling in all its forms, electronic and otherwise) turned an annual profit in the United States last year of $6.65 billion on software alone.

While that figure is staggering, it does little to truly represent the size of the industry. If hardware sales are included in that figure, then the figure jumps to approximately $15 billion. (Note that “hardware” here is defined as game “consoles” like Microsoft’s XBOX and Sony’s PlayStation, and hand-held game systems like the Nintendo Game Boy. It’s difficult to determine how much of the PC market is directly tied to games, however it is clear that people who buy machines primarily or exclusively for games buy the highest-end, and therefore most expensive, machines. There are third party computer manufacturers who target the game market and build and sell high end machines to these consumers exclusively.)

If the world market is calculated, that figure jumps to approximately 3 times that number. (Most notably the inclusion of Japan and the European Union, as well as Australia, makes the most significant impact on the projection of industry size and growth). As an example, Christmas of 2002 saw hardware-only sales of $7.4 billion worldwide.

While many assume that the majority of the market is in PC-Based titles, the bigger piece of the market lies in console-based games. Consoles far outstrip the PC market, as there is a gaming console of some kind in 1 out of every 3 homes in North America, and a Sony Playstation® in 1 out of every 5.

Nor does the preponderance of console titles and the manufacturers’ influence seem historically based in the price point between computers and consoles. Market penetration of console hardware is at an all time high, while software titles cannot seemingly be released fast enough for a hungry audience. Sales of games and game related paraphernalia continue to grow each year despite economic downturns in nearly every other market segment across the board. There have been brief dips in profit and product viability after specific recent events like Columbine and September 11th, however none of these have had a substantial impact on the overall growth curve of the industry.

Nor are these trends considered transitory as there is a 70% growth rate projected for this industry over the next 10 years. There are, to be sure, different growth patterns depending on the analytical tools used for the projected model, but nearly all of the forecasts agree on staggering potential growth as the market for electronic entertainment continues to expand. Games are becoming, in a very real sense, the medium of the 21st century, if only by sheer volume.

2. Breadth of the Industry: Not everything dies.

Perhaps more important than understanding the size of the industry, is gaining an understanding of its breadth and scope. ‘Computer Games’ in all their various forms are in fact quite complex, and serve as a rich and colorful form of entertainment to several different audiences and come in a variety of genres.

While the popular press generally covers games in their basest and least societally acceptable form – the First Person Shooter games of Quake and DOOM, there are in fact several genres of games that are completely non-violent, other games that are violent only in their recreation of historical events, and many that operate on a system of strategy and cooperation that has little to do with the stereotypical ‘cave-hermit’ that plays games all day because of failed real-world attempts at social interaction. Also interesting is that while the media likes to categorize game players as caffeine twitching teenagers strung out on pizza and Mountain Dew, in fact the average game player today can be anywhere from 5 to 65, with an average age of 28 across all genres. Interestingly, the most popular games of the last 20 years have not been first-person shooters, they have been outsold and outclassed by games such as The Sims, Railroad Tycoon, Crash Bandicoot, and Sonic the Hedgehog.

WIRED reported recently that the SuperMario franchise has made more over the years than the Star Wars films. Going back to the Golden Age of the Arcade, it wasn’t Space Invaders or 1942 that crowded kids into malls and Chuck-e-Cheezes – the game at the time was Pac-Man, and its ever more popular spin-off, Mrs. Pac-Man. Hardly a feast of violence, even at the time.

If one is to truly understand games and how they fit into society, it is first necessary to recognize the breadth of differentiation between various types of games, and to understand that games are a nascent medium, still growing both in terms of the technology used to build them, and the possibilities of user experience afforded by that underlying expansion.

Throughout this blog, references to different games and game types (as above) will be used. In studying the types and genres of games, this author identified at last count approximately nine different genres within the overall classification of ‘computer games’, as part of the process in preparing an academic text on the subject, each of which exhibit several different sub-genres and overlapping issues.

3. The Medium of Modern Culture

If one looks carefully at the breadth and depth that games exhibit today, and combines this with the fact that games are still very much a growing medium that has only blossomed in the last 20 years or so, it is apparent that games are quickly becoming the mass-medium of a new modern culture. The game console is already replacing the television as the focal point in many American and Japanese households, and is also being retooled to serve as an Internet gateway for the family. Games are moving online, because at their core games are a social exercise, a way to spend time with friends and family.

The rise of games, the stereotypical press coverage, the misunderstandings of their nature, the scapegoat quality that is currently used to explain acts of violence is all similar in nature to the birth of Hollywood and the film industry. If one studies carefully the medium of film and its rise as both an academic endeavor as a technical and artistic discipline, as well as a medium of communication, many of these same issues were (and sometimes still are) very much in the foreground.

As an interactive medium games separate themselves from film in their real-time nature, the interactivity afforded by the medium, the personalization that players feel as they are immersed in the game world, and the communication that is afforded through multiple players. Where film is a passive experience, games are active.

Nonetheless, there is a large overlap between the study of film and the study of modern computer games. The study of film in academia has been bifurcated into two disciplines; the study of film as a technical means to produce moving pictures and all of the subsequent technological advances, and the study of film as an artistic medium of storytelling and expression.

In repeated and impassioned pleas at the Game Developers Conference, both technologists and artists expressed their sincere belief that it would be a mistake of gigantic proportion should this be allowed to happen to the study of games. Games are dependent on both their technological underpinnings and the playability and story of the game to succeed, and to separate the study of one form the other is to deny the academic a solid understanding of the whole.

4. What is this Blog ?

This blog is about tracking the rise of games as a medium of popular culture, and perhaps the medium of the times. The Jones’ kids all have game consoles, but more and more it’s not just Saturday morning entertainment - games are impacting peoples lives in a way never seen before. There are fan sites, art books, academic theses, and a massive entertainment industry all waking up to the fact that these things are a lot more important than we gave them credit for. Already games are under fire as the evil corrupting the youth: a place formerly reserved for the likes of Rock’n’Roll, Hollywood or Ragtime (depending on your era). This blog is about watching the emergence of a medium, right before our very eyes.

What this blog is focused on:

1. Emerging Gaming Technologies. Games are moving to the wired world, using a variety of techniques, from the MMORPG to the personal 1-cent game of cell-phone chess on the subway ride to work. The technology continues to expand and grow, and with it the possibilities of the medium. Game technology is growing at a rate that dwarfs the innovation in the film and music industries. The very limits of what is feasible are still expanding exponentially.

2. Emerging Social Phenomena Surrounding Games. Online communities are turning out to be as important, or more important, than the content of the games themselves. Media companies are being suddenly faced with the puzzle of thousands of connected consumers that talk and play with each other. Games survive and succeed on word-of-mouth and the community behind them. Game communities are exhibiting more and more complex behavior with regard to member status and player rights. Games themselves are changing to models that put real power in the hands of these communities, the power to create for themselves the games they want. The issues of identity, privacy, collaboration, communication and expectation in the on-line world are becoming part and parcel with the games community and its inner workings.

3. Emergence of Games as a Societal Medium. How are games *really* affecting us? We’re spending an increasingly large percentage of our time in game-worlds and fantasy places, what does this mean? Almost no one, it seems, is doing any real research on how this affects either our youth or ourselves. The academic community is only just now waking up to the fact that games are a dominating force in popular culture and driving an entire technological sector – perhaps because of the stigma of the term ’games’ – which implies a simple waste of time. Are games reflecting modern culture, or shaping it ? Is society ready to accept the importance of how we play and what „games“ really mean in the larger sense? What are the social and cultural issues affecting the games community? Gender? Age? Digital Divide?

4. Emergence of Games in Academia. As the world wakes up and looks around at games with a newfound sense of respect for their importance, one place that is slowly getting over its initial stigma of the study of games is the Ivory Tower. What this means is that there may finally be a place for the critical research of „what makes a good game?“ and a host of other questions to which now the current best answer is „I know it when I play it“. There is a slowly amassing literature and body of knowledge of games and their players which deserves careful consideration and study but which is still stifled by fragmentation and disagreement dating back to the birth of the medium. While many seem happy to apply gaming technologies to ‚more serious problems’ – few are the number of researchers willing to tackle games as they are, to explore their importance and their ramifications. But that number is growing.
5. What this blog is not.

A Game Review Site. There are plenty of places to go read reviews of new games. While this blog may occasionally refer to some new game to point out an interesting point relative to the goals above, rarely will it feature a simple review of a game and say‚ this is good, go buy it’ or some such. More important to us are games that break new ground, be they good or bad, successful or not.

A Game Technology Site. We will discuss technology, in terms of what it affords, how that impacts the community, what it means and how it affects any number of issues. I do not plan to write, here, how it works. There are several sites devoted to programming games and building / modding hardware. While I teach game programming, and while that is certainly part of making games, the focus here is not on how the technology works, but what it means when it does.