Ready, player four billion: the rise of video games

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Last year some 3.2bn people played video games worldwide. Gaming, which saw a big jump in participation during covid lockdowns, now attracts a growing share of women and older people, too

become a daily habit for Trichur Rukmani. Sometimes she taps away for ten minutes, but other times she plays for longer. “I do it when I am free from other things,” she says. The main draw is the excitement of competing, but gaming is also a social experience. Online, from her home in Bangalore, she shares her scores with family members on the other side of the world.

Last year some 3.2bn people played video games, about four in ten people worldwide. The number has risen by about 100m a year, with a big jump during covid lockdowns in 2020. In rich countries two-thirds of people play, nearly half of them women. And though gaming is disproportionately a young person’s hobby older folk are picking up the habit, including half those aged 55-64.

As gaming’s value has swollen, it has attracted large companies. Seven of the ten most valuable tech firms are active in gaming, and they have brought in tech-sized budgets. Microsoft, which launched the Xbox console in 2001, agreed last year to pay $69bn for Activision Blizzard, a game developer. If it gets past antitrust regulators, this will be one of the largest ever tech deals.

This special report argues that, as gaming evolves into a mass medium comparable to television, its development will mimic other media. Consider distribution, where Hollywood has been upended by a revolution in streaming and subscription models. Companies like Netflix are exploring whether something similar might work in gaming. Or look at changing production.

 

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Games have been at the heart of humanity since... well, we know ourselves as humanity. I highly recommend to anyone interested in how games have been changing our interactions throughout time to read the following book: avantgame knows what's up.

omg i go to every day now

This headline made me chuckle. Getting serious? Now? You are literally decades late. Let’s talk again when you realize it’s already redefining storytelling. And has been for years. Sigh… games gaming entertainment

Our relationship with evolving technology was once likened to monkeys with a microwave. Some may push a button and think its purpose is to make light or sound. Others may lift it and think its purpose is to break open things. Both are right, but neither fully.

All that Data, but Missing OBVIOUS Correlations. Obesity = Sedentary = Obesity

TIL almost half the human population on earth: 3.2bn people played video games Last Year.

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