It looks like gaming is making the last steps towards mainstream legitimacy in the entertainment industry.
A study by Frank Alpert, a Professor of Marketing at Griffith University in Australia, shows the growth of the video game industry in relation to other forms of media, such as film and music. This study, titled “Entertainment Software: Suddenly Huge, Little Understood” shows that the video game industry outsells the film industry. “It’s only been around for about 25 years yet the entertainment software industry now outsells the movie box office,” Alpert says.
His study also revealed that the average gamer age was 33 and that 38% of all gamers were women. So the next time you hear someone say only kids or boys with no social life play games, deliver a metaphorical slap in the face with some of these facts.
The most popular genre are the action games, which could be due in large part to the fact that about 70% of games released are action titles. However the most popular series of all time is the quirky life simulator The Sims, proving once again that paying bills can be fun as long as it’s in a virtual world. Alpert believes that The Sims is so wildly popular due to the lack of violence and lewd content “It’s a far broader audience because it’s about human relationships.”
Alpert is persuing plans to further research the videogame industry in hopes of helping people better understand and enjoy games. It seems as though people are just now realizing what avid gamers have known for years, this industry has more potential than any other form of media and will undoubtedly continue to grow as the years go on.
