Video Games Are Here to Stay

First it was seen as a tech trend then it was ‘child’s play,’ but I think it’s safe to say that video games are here to stay. What a bold prediction deep into 2023, a year after the revenue from the worldwide gaming market was estimated at almost US$347billion. That’s more than triple the music and film industries combined. Yet despite being three times bigger, and the younger sibling in the entertainment media family, the video games scene continues to act as if it didn’t know it would get this far. It acts like a reckless man who didn’t expect to reach 30. I know this because that reckless man is me. I never bothered with stretching, I’m bad with money, and I also peaked in 2010.

Consoles are still being peddled on the power of their hardware even though we’re at the point where the tangible change in quality between generations has diminished, and sourcing parts for your PC gaming rig costs a kidney due to its non-gaming applications. Meanwhile, the system of choice for 45% of gamers is a smartphone. It seems that ease of access and standardization are seemingly more attractive to a maturing audience than pure brute strength.

The financials are in disarray. Money is being spent and nothing is being set aside. It’s as if another pandemic is expected to boost sales, and that’s factored into the yearly budget. In one hand the video game industry is showing off its all-time revenue record-breaking years and in the other hand they are holding pink slips to lay off the workforce and shut down the studios that made the industry what it is today.

The current quality of games should not be dismissed outright, but we could do with a discussion as to why the major franchises (from over ten years ago) are spinning their tires on the same intellectual property and why it is that the newest intellectual property repeatedly flounders at the finish line.

The good news is that the video games industry and I can learn to appreciate the value of flexibility, money management, and trading in our perceived best days for better days to come, but in order to do so we have to unlearn our short-sighted habits from the past three decades. 

This newsletter will be a weekly reflection on the industry at large coupled with the parallels of my own personal growth and stumbles. My hopes are for this to serve as a bridge between veterans, youngsters, casuals, and industry insiders alike to share cautionary tales or ask questions about the future. If nothing else, at least I have somewhere to journal about the time I was arrested and asked the officer if I could finish my online match before he hauled me away…