Video Games Past Tipping Point.
With The Sims Online coming out later this month, we should have been expecting a torrent of press about video gaming. Still, you know it's "not just for kids" anymore when you start seeing big stories in Time and USA Today and it's on the cover of Newsweek and now Entertainment Weekly. I just got the latest issue of EW today, and since the cover story isn't available online for free, here are some choice quotes:
"Some 60 percent of Americans (over 145 million people) play videogames. Average age: 28. More than $6.35 billion worth of computer and videogame software was sold last year; that's expected to increase this year....
'I've played videogames since I was in elementary school - from the Atari 2600 up the ladder,' says Tiger Woods, 26, a pro golfer who...oh, you know who Tiger is. Favorites: Madden and GoldenEye 007, the shooting game inspired by the 1995 James Bond flick. 'When I'm on tour and I'm staying at the house of a family I know, I'll bring the PlayStation with me. A lot of times, they'll have kids and we'll play. You'd be amazed. Every single kid knows how to play videogames....'
Aside from hip-hop and music videos, no other form of pop culture in the past 20 years has so pervasively cross-pollinated other popular media as videogames. 'When it comes to pacing, action, and capturing youth culture right now, it's all coming from videogames,' says Tom Calderone, MTV's exec VP of music and talent programming....
Or look at the NFL's running scoreboard, ref-mounted cameras, and even sound effects: They're all lifted from videogames. 'When we started Fox Sports in 1994, I went out and got...every videogame I could,' says Fox Sports Networks chairman David Hill. 'What fascinated me was how videogames were so rich and multi-layered, while television was two-dimensional....'
The next step forward will occur when the two movie sequels to The Matrix arrive in 2003, along with their videogame companion, Enter the Matrix. 'Companion,' because Matrix creators Larry and Andy Wachowski - hardcore gamers both - have been actively involved in the development of the game, conceived as a complement and continuation of the movies. This will finally bring The Matrix to the very medium that, had things gone differently, might have spawned it."
There's also an interesting chart that shows more video game consoles in U.S. households (44%) than DVD players (25%), which I find especially interesting since the Sony Playstation 2 and Microsoft X-Box consoles both play DVDs. The USA Today article, Video Game College is 'Boot Camp' for Designers, is also interesting, in part because it appears in the Money section. Some interesting stats from this article:
"DigiPen is the only accredited school offering a four-year degree in making video games, and it's fast becoming the Harvard among joystick-clenching students fresh out of high school....
No wonder: Even while the economy struggles, the video game industry has become one of the fastest-growing forms of media entertainment:
- Video game sales exceeded the movie industry's annual box office draw last year by $1 billion.
- The current video game hit, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, sold more than 1.4 million copies at an average $48 apiece in its first three days. That $70 million windfall easily puts it in the ranks of a blockbuster movie.
- The popularity of NFL video games has given longtime TV football announcer John Madden celebrity status among teens and young adults.
- Designers can make $50,000 a year right out of college and twice as much if they are part of a team that produces a hit video game....
Video games have morphed from being primitive toys for geeks and kids into a major form of entertainment. Sales of video game hardware, software and gear jumped 42.4% to a record $9.4 billion last year, says NPD Group. That's more than the $8.4 billion in movie tickets sold each year, says PricewaterhouseCoopers." (Emphasis is mine - take that, legislation-hungry Hollywood!)
Yes, the future is indeed video games, and what all of these articles fail to mention is how they will also drive demand for bigger-faster-newer-better cell phones, and PDAs, as well as broadband and 3G. Every kid knows how to play video games, and every kid is going to grow up and play them on mobile devices with always-on, very fast connectivity.
Every time I think this might be a limited phenomenon after all, I find Kailee playing Zoo Tycoon on the PC. She'd love to take the game with her and care for the animals throughout the day. She has already reminded us several times this month that Zoo Tycoon: Marine Mania, Zoo Tycoon: Dinosaur Digs, and Rollercoaster Tycoon are all available at Best Buy (I'm not sure how she knows this, but of course, she's right). I'm a little scared to think about how well she would take to The Sims Online. [The Shifted Librarian]
12:08:15 PM 
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