The Business of Gaming

Gaming is playing games on a digital device. It could be:

A. A laptop,

B. A gaming console like Sony Playstation or Microsoft XBox,

C. The mobile phone

D. An Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality headset

The first video games were played on special arcade machines that were huge. They had a playing keyboard and joystick like this one:

Atari made some amazing video games and they became a serious business.

Can you guess the size of the market? (i.e., the money that is earned in any way by the gaming industry?).

By the multiple reports that we found, it was over 200 billion USD in 2020 and 2021!

Gaming is a very engaging pastime and gamers often use psychological inputs to ensure that players remain addicted and play the game for a long duration each time. Most game sessions are at least one hour long.

Games have caused deaths and many students have suffered in more ways than one because of their gaming addiction. Gaming addiction is a real issue.

But, who are these gamers?

The first generation of gamers has now grown up and has enough money to spend on games.

According to research conducted by Statista, here are some interesting details about the global community of gamers.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Here is another study by Statista. This is a general survey conducted by Statista Research.

You will find more infographics at Statista

As you can see, while the top spots might move a little bit, the world’s largest gaming nations is a stable population.

Coincidentally, more than 50% of game developers live in a single country – USA.

Some more interesting facts about the gaming industry

The world’s population is over 7 billion. Of these more than 2 billion people are active gamers. (Statistics in various reports differ, but at least 2 billion is acknowledged by each of them)

(Question for you: What percentage is that?)

A platform called Steam has the highest number of users and publishers.

More than 85% of the industry’s revenue comes from free to play games.

Chinese gamers spend, on average, over 12 hours a week playing video games. Vietnam is next at 10 hours, and India comes third and just above 8 hours.

Endnote

Gaming is, indeed, a very serious business. But the most concerning fact about this industry is the planned and deliberate addiction that it causes.

For young people, the other risks posed by gaming are:

A. When you are gaming, you cannot play outside. This means that your growing body does not get the exercise that it needs.

B. Most games today are aggressive and violent. This kind of imagery makes it difficult for gamers to view a world that has empathy and kindness. The brain processes virtual and real experiences in the same way – that means that both are real to the brain.

C. Unlike in the real world, social interaction (interaction with others) in a game is bound by rules and outcomes. You are playing together towards winning. In a normal social interaction, we talk about a lot of other things, we talk and we listen, and our exchange is a lot more broad-based. This means that for regular social interaction, we need to listen and speak very differently from the way we do on a video game. This is why people who are great communicators in games struggle with social anxiety. But because they feel that they ‘connect’ with other games, they mistake this outcome-led communication for regular social talking.

Gaming helps players get greater mental acuity, but as the Sanskrit saying goes – अति सर्वत्र वर्जयेत् – Too much of anything is bad. Likewise, young people would benefit from understanding the mental manipulation that goes into making games addictive, understanding how they can benefit from gaming without it affecting their academic and social lives, and then playing to de-stress! 🙂