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Video Gaming Will Take Over

198 points by thesauri 7y ago

proc0 7y ago
Games are just the forefront to interactive media. Apps are getting "gamified" and pretty much anything that can be interactive will be because it's the next level as far as creative and communication medium. At first it was just paintings etc, then photography, then film, and now games which is really interactive digital content.
- JKCalhoun 7y ago
  Curmudgeon, here. Why do books, paintings, photos, and film exist at all anymore? Maybe because we don't all want everything "interactive" all the time.
  - swah 7y ago
    I handled a paper newspaper the other day - it was very soothing.
    - kbrackbill 7y ago
      I have the same experience whenever I read a paper. I wonder if there's anything intrinsic to that or if I only like it because of nostalgia.
      - gaius__baltar 7y ago
        Tactile and audio feedback matter a lot; think of eating (shelled) peanuts v. pistachios.
      - swah 7y ago
        I think its both nostalgia and knowing the format means its around N pages, has an abstract and a conclusion, etc. But what I find more calming about paper newspaper and magazines is how static it is (the web could be as well of course). No ads popping, no video ads, no chance the content will be replaced with a paywall in 5 seconds. Since I arrive on different sites from Google/Twitter all the time, I never remember which ones I actually have access. And opening the rare site that I know is open and without ads feels like a very premium experience (eg some Craig Mod writing I found on my email yesterday https://www.eater.com/2019/12/16/21003452/japan-kissaten-traditional-cafes-pizza-toast-travel https://www.eater.com/2019/12/16/21003452/japan-kissaten-tra...) Also: IRL "arriving at the thing" (say finding an interesting magazine in the doctors office) means that I can read what is inside. Unlike the internet nowadays ("you reached your monthly quote of 5 articles")
    - mhh__ 7y ago
      I've never known any different. The private eye only publishes in print so it's paper until I die (or the paper folds)
  - slfnflctd 7y ago
    All of those things have been given interactive platforms in pre-internet settings: book clubs, museums, galleries and film festivals. It's of course important to have the option to enjoy them by yourself at times-- but you can do this with games, too. Nearly all visual & audio art can be presented in a game-like environment (such as a customized VR setting), so in a way a game engine is a superset of every piece of art in those categories. And they will all continue to exist, because part of art is confining your expression to a defined medium to intensify your focus on it.
    - nl 7y ago
      For me the lack of interactivity is the feature.
- ErikAugust 7y ago
  I’d go as far to say that the majority of the applications people use today that aren’t strictly business productivity tools are, more or less, games. This includes social media, fitness trackers, etc.
FooHentai 7y ago
>Cloud gaming means you will be able to take your game “everywhere” and avoid dreaded 20-minute updates before you can start playing. Doubt. In the same way that movies on PSP had this idea in mind but fell flat on it's face, games are strongly tied to the format and environment in which you consume them. FPS gaming with a keyboard and mouse isn't coming with you on your phone for the morning commute, and no amount of technology is going to change that because the main barrier is you won't want to play that game on your morning commute with a bunch of people around you, noise, and being unable to immerse yourself (even for reasons as simple as needing to remember to get off at your stop). That said, perhaps the converse doesn't hold true, and when you flop down in front of your screen in the evening you can get into a 6h marathon of bejeweled just the same as you were playing on the train into work that morning. Streaming isn't an enabler for this though, just cross-platform builds of your chosen game and cross-format suitability for input/output methods. >Microsoft claims Game Pass subscribers increase their overall playtime by 40% I'd really like to see retention stats alongside this to drawn an inference, because (anecdotally), I subscribed, played the shit out of the one game I subscribed for, then cancelled my sub before the next month. I definitely look like a player with increased playtime, because I deliberately did that to play a game that would have cost $$ for just $.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  > FPS gaming with a keyboard and mouse isn't coming with you on your phone for the morning commute, and no amount of technology is going to change that because the main barrier is you won't want to play that game on your morning commute with a bunch of people around you, noise, and being unable to immerse yourself (even for reasons as simple as needing to remember to get off at your stop). PUBG and Fortnite are both wildly popular mobile games. I see people playing them on the bus all the time.
  - FooHentai 7y ago
    And I've seen a fair number of peeps playing minecraft on ipad too, so you have a point. They are separate, partitioned instances of the games though, tailored for the format.
Pfhreak 7y ago
Video gaming has already taken over? Are there media formats that rival it from a revenue standpoint?
- rhacker 7y ago
  The article is contrasting it with just general TV (or movies/shows/netflix/etc...) Basically video, but non-interactive. I had the same feeling though, I didn't know what "Video Gaming" was taking over (my immediate thought was non-video gaming and quickly decided that betting at a horse race or a slot machine wasn't the comparison at hand here.
- VLM 7y ago
  total gaming revenue in 2017 was about $100B total newspaper advertising plus circulation revenue in 2018 was about $25B total TV advertising revenue in the USA in 2018 was $71B from one source. WarnerMedia conglomerate controls about a third of all viewership, maybe, and had $33B revenue in 2018 so the numbers seem consistent. So yeah, gaming is about four times legacy print, and maybe 50% larger than legacy video.
  - fireattack 7y ago
    How is that "50% larger"? Isn't 100B the number for the whole world?
  - MattRix 7y ago
    For another comparison, most people who consider themselves "gamers" wouldn't even count mobile games as "real" games... and yet: The App Store did pulled in nearly $1 billion of revenue per week in 2019. Of each week, $700 million was games. That's $37 billion just on the Apple App Store alone.
    - fragsworth 7y ago
      I wouldn't call them real games, they're more like addiction+monetization traps. Once you finish one, if you do, you never go back to the app store looking for another one. I think that will eventually kill the market.
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
For a medium that has growing revenue, the major players and properties are attempting increasingly manipulative, desperate, awful, and addictive mechanisms to squeeze more revenue.
- minimaxir 7y ago
  To an extent. Even the most manipulative mechanics have died down amid significant player protest. (e.g. Star Wars Battlefront II) Case in point: modern console games have been trying to avoid pushing loot box mechanics as much as possible. (mobile gacha games are a bit more complicated, but even those have been made substantially less greedy)
- potta_coffee 7y ago
  IMO that just makes more opportunity for indies. I didn't really start exploring indie games actively until I started hating the AAA games that were coming out.
- lmm 7y ago
  Revenue may be growing, but so are costs and competition.
  - AtlasBarfed 7y ago
    While almost anyone can code up a game, I disagree with you overall. "AAA" games are MASSIVE undertakings of world building, art production, coding, integration, and, of course, financing. Very similar to movies and, well, goddamn everything of any complexity in our economy, a cartel has formed. There are only a handful of AAA "studios/producers".
sethammons 7y ago
While I think games are an underused medium for advertising and promoting, I'm not sure about any claim of it "taking over." Mobile games on the rise and all that, blah blah. From my own experience, as my purchasing power has grown, my gaming time has declined. I did play a lot of Breath of the Wild. However, I have another couple of games I'd like to play, but I just don't have the time.
- ngngngng 7y ago
  I've experienced the same. Breath of the Wild and Red Dead Redemption 2 are the only recent games that got any notable amount of playtime from me. I still buy many games once they get down to $5-$10. God of War and Spiderman were my most recent purchases since they just got down below $10, who knows if I'll ever actually play those.
  - cjlars 7y ago
    The truly big games, in terms of hours played, seems to be online multiplayer. MMORPG, FPS, whatever DOTA is... those are the games where some people start putting in 1000+ hours per year. Problem is close to everyone can enjoy TV and movies, not everyone wants to do eSports.
    - whatusername 7y ago
      Those plus Civilization.
- HenryKissinger 7y ago
  The article is less about how much people play in an absolute sense, but more about how much people play compared to how much time they spend watching television (and streaming services like Netflix). You say that your gaming time has declined. Has your time watching tv declined comparably? Which of the two - gaming or tv - would you say is more important in your life?
  - Seenso 7y ago
bitL 7y ago
Games these days already have graphics that sometimes makes them seem real (in 4k/5k on 2080Ti/Titan RTX, Ultra), especially landscapes or space settings, and often much more interesting story than most TV shows. In addition, whole sports segments like motor racing are way less fun to watch than to play a quite realistic simulator, where players are often current/former top-level real-world racers.
- mhh__ 7y ago
  > Games these days already have graphics that sometimes makes them seem real Assassin's creed odyssey looks fucking outrageously good - considering it has the "whole" (compressed) ancient Greece to render. I was brought up on a PS1 (still a long way from the likes of Pacman etc.) but the progress that has been made is amazing. > motor racing are way less fun to watch than to play a quite realistic simulator, This is true but (good) simulator rigs are really expensive + simracing brings you to the cold hard reality that you don't have it (Max Verstappen I ain't :| )
watwut 7y ago
Interestingly this point: > more about creating an environment that audiences never want to leave and which constantly sucks them back in Is basically why I decided to never play a game again. I just won't. And also why I am getting stressed when I see partner starting a game, cause periods of addiction and consequential sleep deprivation and all that suck not just for gamer.
VLM 7y ago
The author has an unusual water cooler. I pulled the viewership stats and well under two percent of the population watches "The Bachelor", so in somewhat more than 49 times out of 50, a water cooler discussion about legacy media would be met with "huh?". According to some Google research, there are typically around eight million concurrent fortnite players, which implies for every two people watching The Bachelor, there are three people playing fortnite. (Edited: I made a major math error in that Bachelor is a special weekly event, and those fortnite events pull more like 10M concurrent, whereas I was comparing regular gameplay numbers. So comparing "weekly special events" across media formats, its more like there's about five fortnite players for every two bachelor viewers.) The odds of a water cooler conversation about "So... tilted towers, or the dusty divot?" are about 50% more likely to be successful than something Bachelor inspired like "So... Peter or Colton?" (edit: actual number closer to 250% as per above edit. In summary you can ignore legacy media and just talk about modern video games when you're trying to socialize, especially if both parties are non-senior citizens) I will say the pacing of the experience is kinda the same; about 99% waiting and listening to sizzle, and about 1% steak where its actually interesting.
- Seenso 7y ago
  > The odds of a water cooler conversation about "So... tilted towers, or the dusty divot?" are about 50% more likely to be successful than something Bachelor inspired like "So... Peter or Colton?" You're assuming that Bachelor watchers and fornite players are randomly distributed across water coolers, when they clearly aren't. For instance: water cooler conversations about the Bachelor may typically be extremely successful because the only people who watch it are in environments with a concentration of other fans. There are lots of other variables at play. IMHO, videogames aren't going to take over, they're just going further increase media fragmentation in certain demographic categories.
- owlninja 7y ago
  10M adults?
- majormajor 7y ago
  You'd also want to know recurring rates, 30-day unique numbers, and stuff like that... but even aside from all that... Traditionally media product consumption is very age-stratified, with people time constraints and choices changing with phases of life. Even historically pre-games, this would apply to the types of shows or movies, so the most popular teen show in the world may not dominate office chit-chat the same way the most popular-among-adults entertainment would, say Monday Night Football. Now there are way more forms in play then there used to be. Fortnite is very new. Gaming participation among my age group (millennial) certain has changed with aging, as many of my former die-hard gamer friends no longer devote nearly as much attention to it, but have picked up "old person" habits like passively watching HGTV while doing household chores instead. Similarly, even now when I'm working with very gamer-heavy coworkers... it's not Fortnite. So it's entirely possible for something to dominate in revenue and overall any-single-instance participation numbers yet be less relevant to the "mainstream" mid-20s-to-middle-aged conversation... It's also possible for that conversation to continue to fracture.
rconti 7y ago
Is number of users/percent of addressable market going up, or just spend from the same existing userbase? (I did some strategic search-on-page-ing, but didn't find anything addressing it, and as a non-gamer, the breathless excitement about the topic was exhausting) I get the general impression that 'casual gaming' (which takes me back to the bad old days of Zynga) was bringing in new users by the truckload, but I don't really feel it "in the real world"
georgeecollins 7y ago
I agree with most of this, except that I think comparing video game services to video streaming services is misleading. As the author points out, video game content can have a much longer lifespan than linear content, so people skip around a lot less. If you like crime TV shows you can watch all the episodes of a crime TV show and then try another show and another show and there is an ongoing demand for similar content. If you like Fortnite you play more Fortnite. You might try another game like Fortnite, but only one or two games and you are probably going to settle on one. Same if you are a fan of CoD, GTA, Madden, etc. In general you are not trying a new game every month the way you might see a new movie or read a new book. There are some gamers on Steam who try lots and lots of different games all the time. Everything well reviewed, things on sale.. etc. My kids are like that. But gamers like that are rare. 95% of the people on Steam play two games or one exclusively. Therefore I don't see a rise of services that are like "Netflix" for gamers. Digital DRM channels like Steam, Origin, Epic, etc. will continue to thrive because they let you buy the thing you really want. I question the long term major success of things like Apple Arcade. People who will pay for games want to pay for the game they want most. They don't mind getting other games, but having a library to sample is of dubious value. I can see the point if you are a parent and you are buying for your kids so it will continue. Otherwise I think this article is great. Yay gaming industry!
- vermilingua 7y ago
  Have you got any evidence for that, other than what your kids play? Most of the people I know that play video games play a wide range, and I highly doubt that steam could have been a fraction as successful as it is if “95% of the people play one game exclusively”.
  - georgeecollins 7y ago
    >> Have you got any evidence for that, other than what your kids play? I hear your doubts. To be clear: I never said 95% of the people play one game exclusively. I said 95% play two or fewer games. What I should have said was probably 90% of the people play two or fewer games in a year which I think is more accurate. How can Steam make so much money? Well playing two games doesn't mean you own two games. Many many games are "purchased" on Steam and never played at all. The two games do change over time, though not quickly. Also, there are a lot of people out there with Steam accounts! Besides my kids as evidence, I can't really link to research I look at. I am a 25 year game industry veteran who runs the interactive division of a small entertainment company. So I guess I can site myself as an expert :) Which you can reject.
wruza 7y ago
>And no one chooses not to game because there’s a branching narrative available instead. This hypothesis is late a little. When a new game comes out that is not of a particularly comfortable genre, many gamers just watch letsplays (letsREplays in case of RTS with top players) and have the same fun. Many gamers are not okay with like Sekiro, DS, other timing/apm-heavy games, but the games themselves are good to watch and players/commenters are as great. It is also consumable without a PC. What no one really chooses to watch is an idiotic tv-style narrative with repetitions, catch-factoids, watchtotheend baits and other annoying stamps. TV is not dead, it’s its hosts and managers are dinosaurs who stuck in the last century with their auditory and attention retaining methods. I (and I bet many others) would watch broadcast TV at fixed times daily, if it had at least one channel that doesn’t suck. Because it is usually of much better picture quality than youtube’s streaming compression rules. Just fire all your content editors and selfish hosts, contract best of 300-500 yt channels for pixel-accurate fullhd+ content and all our evenings are yours again.
nitwit005 7y ago
If this had been published 20 years ago, I'd totally agree, but we already seem to be entering an era where video gaming is starting to cannibalize itself. There are young people playing mobile games who seem completely uninterested in consoles. Also perhaps missing some negative trends. Saying user-generated content is important is true, but companies fight against it more than they used to. The more games rely on paid DLC, or cash shops for things like costumes, the less they want to allow things like modding, as it can directly undermine it. I never bought the Skyrim DLC because there were tons of great mods for free.
xmonkee 7y ago
This analysis is completely missing out on the auteur angle of media production. Games Are Not Art (Yet). Even if they get immensely popular, they will not be as culturally relevant as movies or books. A mind like Orson Welles will never be compelled to make the Citizen Kane of games. I think at some point cookie cutter cinema like Marvel will seamlessly blend into the cultural domain of video games. Movies like that are already video games in cinema form, in a sense. OTOH, there is no equivalent of a video game that is an actual piece of art. (This is all very subjective, I know, but the subjective dimension has to be considered in a discussion about the relevance of a medium)
- moretai 7y ago
  Sorry to do this, but then what is Art? Movies are made by corporations backed by millions of dollars. There have been incredible moments that I've experienced in video games, whether it be a cutscene, or gameplay. I've been moved to emotion. In awe. Not comparing Kojima to Welles, but isn't MGS his singular vision?
- munificent 7y ago
  > Games Are Not Art (Yet). But pigment smeared on a piece of wood is? > they will not be as culturally relevant as movies or books. I'm sorry you missed the memo, but games are more culturally relevant than books now. It makes me sad too. > A mind like Orson Welles will never be compelled to make the Citizen Kane of games. This sentence is equivalent to "A mind like Langston Hughes will never be compelled to make the Mulatto of films." Except, well, there is Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, so it's obviously wrong. Your sentence probably is too. Will Wright, Sid Meier, Markus Persson, Shigeru Miyamoto, etc. You may think, "These people are not the stature of Orson Welles", but you'll be hard pressed to come up with a definition of "stature" that isn't basically just equivalent to "I'm trying to evaluate games as if they were movies". Koyaanisqatsi would fare poorly if you evaluated it as if it were a play, but it is certainly art and a good film.
- waddlesworth 7y ago
  I definitely disagree with this, it sounds like you're only taking into account the big budget titles that the media talks (and complains) about. My favourite story game, Life is Strange from DONTNOD, literally brought me to tears. Going through the Steam reviews, you'll find this is a common reaction. It was still in my mind weeks after I had completed it. Easily the most compelling piece of entertainment (and yes, Art) that I have ever experienced. No movie I have ever watched has solicited that response. Even something like the quest line in Warframe I've found more compelling than most movies (shout out to DE's writers on this one). It's hard to say for Citizen Kane specifically, but I'd wager more people have seen Avengers: Endgame than any particular contemporary equivalent. Just as more people have played Fortnite than either of the games I've mentioned above. You can definitely find truly powerful art in the video game medium, if you're willing to look.
ArtWomb 7y ago
>>> Unprecedented Content Leverage The other day I was in the mood for some "Crossy Road". I had deleted it from my Kindle years ago to curb my time suck. Now it's not in the store anymore. Replaced by a new version from the same developer, "Hipster Whale", but re-branded as a tie-in with Disney characters. The new art is flat and unremarkable. Where the original was really charming. And actual user performance is virtually unplayable. A far cry from the immortal re-playability of the original. Not to mention the ubiquitous promotional dark patters, the pernicious in-app purchase harpings, the auto play trailers with 1x1px cancel buttons that link to a store and thrash game state, loot boxes, and characters from edge IP no one has ever heard of. Instead of the original's unforgettable characters such as "Frankenstein" "Disco Zoo" and "Kimchi". And yet this version is probably more popular than ever! With a burst of revenue to boot. If the market is speaking it really begs to question. Besides ISVs on zero budgets, who will invest in "pure" action-arcade oriented video games?
- DerekL 7y ago
  That's weird that you couldn't find the original Crossy Road. The website says it's available from Amazon. I've played both games on iOS, and I haven't noticed a performance difference between them. Also, the original still gets some new characters every so often, while Disney Crossy Road hasn't gotten new characters in two years. https://www.crossyroad.com https://www.crossyroad.com
  - ArtWomb 7y ago
    Had to reset device (3rd gen fire hd) but finally installed. Still find classic version framerate much better than disney ;)
- bananaboy 7y ago
  Not sure why you couldn't find it but Disney Crossy Road and Crossy Road are both available on the major app stores.
rolltiide 7y ago
And now I'd like to see a renowned woman in analyst come to the same conclusions!
EamonnMR 7y ago
Can we talk about those dreaded twenty minute updates? As someone who no longer has unlimited gaming time to burn, enormous updates that do nothing but make minor balance tweaks are the bane of my gaming experience.
- 013a 7y ago
  Cloud gaming may help this, but realistically: the fact that you notice updates (on fast internet) is really a tech problem that even local-rendering traditional consoles can solve. Background updating should be a thing. It is available on every major console. It never works. That can be fixed. Additionally, there have been rumblings about where innovation is going to surface in the next generation of consoles. One of the more consistent themes is the handling of downloads; it'll be easier for developers to "shard out" their game into the components that, say, a particular mode or level or segment need, in order to get players into the game as quickly as possible. It may be a 50gb game, but you'll only have to download 3gb of it to get started. We're seeing some of this on the XB1/PS4 today, but usually its very binary: Ready to Play, then Full Download. Next gen consoles will get much more specific and optimized. I believe (don't quote me on this) Sony has outright said that their goal is: you buy a game and you play it instantly, with no cloud rendering/streaming; just really smart handling of downloads and packaging. The most ironic thing about gaming over the past generation is that games always used to be like this: you buy a disk/cartridge, and you're playing. Nowadays, you buy a disk, the disk has to install to the drive, then there's a day 1 update; its a total mess. We'll see how the next generation looks, but I doubt very much the situation will look much better for people with bad internet. If you've got great internet though, maybe we'll be close to the way it looked in the past.
cookie_monsta 7y ago
There's a point that the article only brushes on that seems important. My generation (born in early 70's) was the first to really come up with access to video games pretty much as a given. We had space invaders etc in the arcades (or wherever else they could fit a cabinet), hand-held Nintendo and basic home consoles in primary school and then of course came the boom with PC, PS, X-Box and all that followed. But a lot of people only a few years older than me are just as dismissive about games now as they were then - this is kids' stuff, a waste of time and money. I'm not an obsessive gamer, but I do play every now and then and I absolutely see games as just another option on the entertainment landscape. And being that older people weren't into them, I guess I'd always had the thought in the back of my mind that games were something you grew out of, like binge drinking or not caring about your retirement (your examples may vary). But the other day I was playing with friends and I looked around at these ~50 year olds and realised we're never going to "grow out" of this - particularly if the hardware and software just keep improving the way they have. So for me one of the big reasons that gaming will keep growing is because those older, non-gaming generations will die out, replaced by new generations who start gaming ever earlier while eventually you may find yourself playing call of duty with a platoon of 80+ year-olds.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  I'm a tad younger than you and I'd like your opinion. I stopped caring about the gaming industry because 1) even if it's entertainment, I think the deep value is .. as a kid thing. It's not dismissive, I just think that gaming value has limits. It's a dreamy world you interact with and that fits the younger brain. As adults you'd rather master the real world more. 2) I find games today not much more original than in the past, it plateau-ed somehow [0] and they're mostly selling more technical oomph to justify new things. [0] to be honest I interact very lightly with games, only a cousin younger than I show me some stuff, this plus the fads you can hear about online. Do you really think a PS5 game will be that much more enjoyable than a PS2 game ? The other question .. well you answered it. You and your friends are still into them.
  - cogman10 7y ago
    I interact less with games not because I don't like playing them but because I have far less time for them. Honestly, I do casual games a lot more simply because they are easier to pick up and put down. Gaming got me into programming (mods are fun).
pattisapu 7y ago
All of this ignores the elephant in the room. NetHack 3.6.4 released!
- iRobbery 7y ago
  or the comeback of vinyl, nice to see that purple curve going up again. :)
amiantos 7y ago
Article seems to forget that there are vast swaths of the population that do not play games. They do not have the patience to learn how to play games, not even console games with simpler controls. Even casual games require some level of skill to play, or they're not any fun, and the joy of television is that you do not need any special skill to enjoy it. This isn't even getting into people who view games as a waste of time, worse than television--at least television can sometimes teach you something, most games do not. You could try to argue that because a lot of children play games, future generations will be more game-focused, but I still don't believe that it's even close to a simple majority of children who like playing games as much as watching video content. Video content will always win because they don't take much (or any) energy (physical, mental, or emotional) to enjoy. I think most people find that you reach a point in the day where you're too tired to literally do anything else (no reading, no gaming) but stare at video until you're ready to fall asleep.
- sgarman 7y ago
  Get in line. People have been making that argument since the dawn of time. Even "writing" was heavily criticized over memorization and oral story telling. Each criticism declaring the end and ruin of civilization. If I had to pick one of them to actually make this complaint against it would be computer (AI) generated content optimized for clicks on video websites (think kids videos on youtube).
  - nl 7y ago
    It sounds like you think the OP is making a moral argument against games, but I don't believe they are. I have no moral issue with time spent on games. My son plays quite a lot and I think that's fine. I have zero interest in them though. There are a lot of reasons for this, but they aren't moral reasons - just preferences. I'd note that this also reflect in my lack of interest in board/card games. I know a lot of people like me, from all age groups - they'll watch video content but have no interest in playing games. I think that the article author misses that.
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
adnjoo 7y ago
Na.. gaming is intensive. Sometimes I just want to sit back, relax, let my brain go to zombie mode after work :P Not decide, and clicky stuff
- mhh__ 7y ago
  If you can afford it VR is fantastic for "relaxing" - Scare-quotes because I'm thinking of beatsaber which can leave you out of breath if you have bad technique or are unfit. Smack some blocks in time with music - good exercise too.
kromem 7y ago
No, it won't. While there are outstanding single player narrative experiences leveraging the format to further the narrative, there's nothing like a good TV show or movie for joint attention. When enjoying a narrative with friends or a loved one many people will not want to pause to argue furiously over what dialogue choice to make or how to deal with a moral dilemma. Games are a fantastic medium. But there have limitations, just as every other medium does. Remember when radio was going to make the written word obsolete? Or TV kill off sound-only formats and movie theaters? The medium is an integral part of the message. Video games are a new medium that will be added to the mix, not replace it, just as every media before it.
- GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
  Non-interactive fictional media - I want someone to tell me a story. Interactive fictional media - I want to be in the story / make my own story. I think we're living in a golden age to be honest.
- crummy 7y ago
  How much TV do you think is watched with others?
  - watwut 7y ago
    A lot, actually. It is probably easiest way how the couple can do something together, rest and cuddle while doing it and have something to talk about afterwards. You can do it together with kids while browsing on the phone - you are there and available while not forced to participate too much too.
- alexgmcm 7y ago
  Playing Until Dawn with my colleagues at lunch was awesome. I think there is definitely a space for interactive movie style games. I want Man of Medan on Stadia!
- baby 7y ago
  I’m not sure why you say that video fames are a new medium. We’ve had video game for a pretty long time.
m3kw9 7y ago
Problem with games is sometimes it gets way repetitive depending on the design of the game
- MayeulC 7y ago
  Some (especially MMO) are designed the same way modern social networks are: to make you spend as much time as possible in-game. This increases the number of players, which makes the game more attractive.
aaron695 7y ago
There are 6 billion viewers still slowing joining Hollywood's streaming media, it's being tapped in the movie industry well, TV is the next stop. It'll take decades to get the full market. That's a lot of up coming growth. Plus as billions start getting leisure time, both Video Gaming and Media will grow, not sure analysing the internal market makes a lot of sense. "7 Reasons Why Video Gaming Will Take Over" has no real meaning without some sort timelines and estimates. In 100 years time we will all just jack into VR..... meh sure. The fact the author seems to not fully understand the current limitations of Video Games points me to they are jumping the gun.
danans 7y ago
> The goal is typically less about art (e.g. The Irishman) or even editorial vision (e.g. Black Panther as part of the MCU), and more about creating an environment that audiences never want to leave ... everything is about the player, not the storyteller. > One can debate how this orientation limits the artistic potential of the category. The video game interaction model, which emphasizes freedom for the user within an environment, is at odds with storytelling, in which the framing, tone, pacing, and narrative have to be tightly controlled. But more practically, the artistic and narrative potential is limited because art and good storytelling aren't really what the gaming audience demands. Before gaming "takes over" attention from storytelling media, it will need to somehow gain the narrative power of movies, TV, podcasts, and similar media, because human beings love storytelling - as we have for millenia. Even "reality" TV, whatever one may think of its artistic merit, has a relatable narrative substructure that exceeds that of video games by a long shot.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  Gaming has a narrative format. Moving through a series of rooms that reveal the story. BioShock, Stanley parable, half life, the witness, max payne, spec ops the line ect have been doing this for a while. From a semiotics perspective the story format is to move a player character through a series of rooms that reveal the story to you via characters and world. The game designer has near total control over space, pushing players through portals and dropping them from heights into new worlds. Worlds must be constructed in near complete 3d. The game designer has limited control over time. An increase of time pressure has to be applied carefully. The player controls movement through time. Film controls time with near complete control via cuts. Film can easily lose track of space and geometry. They only have to film a section of space that looks realistic to a 2d camera. I'd argue the conflict you are describing is a desire for the artist to control the viewer's time whilst you are participating in the art form. Games that do that are RPGs with levelling progression that tune the player's actions to maximize synchronicity with spawn rates, item drops, refills, selling timers and more. Single player architecture and audio book simulators like BioShock do not aim at that level of controlling time. TV does, film does even more so, you give up control over time to a predetermined 24fps film.
- baby 7y ago
michalf6 7y ago
I'm hopeful it won't, a growing subset of young people is actively rejecting video games as they introduce harm and escapism to their lives. My best friend was set back in life a whole year because he got sucked in Leauge of Legends. We need to start having a discussion not about video games causing violence as it's proven to be bollocks, but about video games causing passivness and apathy.
endymi0n 7y ago
I respect Matt a lot for his continued valuable insight on the streaming universe, but I think he goes into the wrong direction here (probably some confirmation bias involved). > Most media categories are confined by three challenges. First is their finite length. At a certain point, you reach the last page of a book, last episode of a TV show, or end of a podcast. This is a feature, not a bug. With the massive, coordinated attack of the attention economy on everyone's focus, I predict a new wave of burned victims who voluntarily eject from "hedonistic treadmill" type games where you play all day long and never reach the end in order to go back to completing wholesome experiences. There's a whole generation to still discover what an end game screen looks like, but once they've seen a great and hard earned one, it's hard to go back on that satisfaction.
- Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
  A game can have no ending because it's an endless grinding treadmill (like most pay-to-win mobile games and their most satanic incarnation, gacha games, where they endlessly introduce new characters to milk the player base for money) or it can have no ending because it's a sandbox where you can make your own story, like TES Daggerfall or Ultima Online (Daggerfall did have a main quest with endings but many players choose to just live their life, buy houses, become the leader of factions and so on). Then there are also games that do have a restricted length but they generate very different stories so they have almost endless replayability, like Civilization games or (if I may digress a bit into a totally different thing) AI Dungeon 2. In the former kind of games, indeed infinite length is not an advantage, but I think in the latter two kinds, it is.
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
> In the 19th century, the idea of “leisure” versus “work” emerged. huh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otium Frow wikipedia: The favorable sense of otium in Ciceronian Latin reflects the Greek term σχολή (skholē, "leisure", a meaning retained in Modern Greek as σχόλη, schólē); "leisure" having a complex history in Greek philosophy before being used in Latin (through Latin the word became the root of many education-related English terms, such as school, scholar and scholastic).
keiferski 7y ago
I think this argument is backwards. Games will become more like video, in that they are passive consumption, narrative-driven experiences, not the other way around. Most games now still require too much buy-in, too much effort to learn and understand. The format is still an order of complexity above a book or video; it would be better to compare video games to other (immensely popular) games like chess, Go, or Backgammon.
- OJFord 7y ago
  Netflix released that Black Mirror episode that's a sort of 'choose your own adventure' game though. Not that that necessarily makes me disagree about the effort/buy-in - I still haven't watch/played it.
burntoutfire 7y ago
What game proponents seem to miss is that most people are mostly interested in other people (we are predominantly social creatures after all). Books, movies, tv shows can create extremely lifelike immersive experiences that center around people. Games, on the other hand, suck at it - humans are way to hard for a computer to simulate. The current fallback is to have scripted bits of bad movies/books embedded in between the mechanistic gameplay, which makes most people just want to grab for the real thing (movie/book). Hence games are mostly popular among young people, who haven't developed much taste yet and who have a lot of time to kill, and fill it with the mechanistic gameplay.
- dgb23 7y ago
  There are quite a number of games which are praised for achieving an emotional connection to the presented characters.
- baby 7y ago
  Weird, I would say the opposite. Video games, and now VR, are the most immersive experience you can get. I wonder if you would change your mind after playing a game like the last of us.
SergeAx 7y ago
> Gaming is Replicating the TV Package Not sure about this one. Most of the time TV was either free or close to free, because it was a state-sponsored political media too. Even now TV content is subscription-based; pay per view is marginal part. Videogame subscription services are giving access to some second grade games and some bonus content and maybe discounts, but not to premium titles. In fact, most premium titles are subscription-based themselves. It is like if you have a Disney+, but have to pay extra for Mandalorian subscription.
onefuncman 7y ago
>It’s true that to date, gaming IP has not delivered strong results at the box office. Warcraft (2016) made $440M worldwide on a $160M budget, mostly in China IIRC.
vonseel 7y ago
Author is confusing active screen-browsing (TikTok) active digital pastimes (gaming) with passive leisure activities that also involve screens, and before screens, radio. Before the age of TV, you could lay on couch with eyes closed listening to radio shows. You can still do this technically even with TV shows, but it’s obviously not as good. Watching TV is a completely passive activity, especially watching TV shows like on Netflix; maybe sports are more active watching. TikTok is just scrolling social media, you have to keep your hand on the screen constantly to browse that corner of the Internet. And that’s really all the social networks are, a corner of the Internet. With a bunch of different people and interests promoting their own ideas or selves. You can’t lay down and passively watch it; you have to browse and control your destination. There will always be people who simply don’t find video games amusing or prefer passive activities like laying and watching shows. I had the opposite thought as the author earlier tonight - Netflix is taking over the world; it already did. It seems like every few days new content is showing up for people to consume; as a heavy consumer, I think part of that is because Netflix knows they are feeding the hunger and they never want you to have a night alone on the couch where you can’t find something to watch. Apple TV+ will only intensify this. I bet there are a bunch of single, young people who have little social life and spend most of their free time watching Netflix. People of all ages and demographics, really, families too, but I guess I identify and understand the first group. After a few days of binge watching, you feel woven with the characters and it feels like a part of your social life possibly more so than that friend you haven’t seen in months/etc. Just for a few moments until you move on to something else, you feel like you know these characters. Like you’ve lived in their little world. I’ve heard the same things about people who watch high-profile gamers play, or YouTuber fans. So maybe the really scary thing here is that Nf, YT, gaming and other avenues make entertainment sooo cheap and sooo accessible nowadays that real, in-person relationships are being replaced by something less tangible - and much less valuable. Reminds me of the article I read a few days ago about a person listening to “pretend boyfriend pillow talk” on YouTube. Apparently these things help with feelings of loneliness but they. Just. Aren’t. Real.
zPwoo 7y ago
Honestly, I'm hoping this isn't the case. Gaming becoming more and more popular recently has only just been detrimental to the industry as a whole as we've come to learn that shareholders are willing to sacrifice game quality for profits. Every new release is just eye-candy and a thinly-veiled money grab while delivering shallow gameplay. It's very disheartening. Especially when you consider the fact that for the younger gamers this is all they know. They never got a chance to see video games unaffected by lootboxes, B2P games with cash shops or "free to play" games that aren't blatantly pay to win. Let's not even touch on the shady & dehumanizing labor practices the entire gaming industry seems normalizes. The future of gaming is anything but positive for me. I feel like most people are mistaking the success of new technologies (AR & VR) as the success of video games. Most videos games release in the last 5 years are absolute shite and the ones that aren't are marginal at best.
talles 7y ago
I recently hooked up my old SNES on a CRT TV, and the input lag difference from a conventional TV and a PS4 bluetooth controller is staggering. I can only imagine the input lag horror on cloud gaming. Maybe for a story-driven or turn-based game would be fine. Maybe.

198 points by thesauri 7y ago

Games are just the forefront to interactive media. Apps are getting "gamified" and pretty much anything that can be interactive will be because it's the next level as far as creative and communication medium. At first it was just paintings etc, then photography, then film, and now games which is really interactive digital content.

JKCalhoun 7y ago
Curmudgeon, here. Why do books, paintings, photos, and film exist at all anymore? Maybe because we don't all want everything "interactive" all the time.
- swah 7y ago
  I handled a paper newspaper the other day - it was very soothing.
  - kbrackbill 7y ago
    I have the same experience whenever I read a paper. I wonder if there's anything intrinsic to that or if I only like it because of nostalgia.
    - gaius__baltar 7y ago
      Tactile and audio feedback matter a lot; think of eating (shelled) peanuts v. pistachios.
    - swah 7y ago
      I think its both nostalgia and knowing the format means its around N pages, has an abstract and a conclusion, etc. But what I find more calming about paper newspaper and magazines is how static it is (the web could be as well of course). No ads popping, no video ads, no chance the content will be replaced with a paywall in 5 seconds. Since I arrive on different sites from Google/Twitter all the time, I never remember which ones I actually have access. And opening the rare site that I know is open and without ads feels like a very premium experience (eg some Craig Mod writing I found on my email yesterday https://www.eater.com/2019/12/16/21003452/japan-kissaten-traditional-cafes-pizza-toast-travel https://www.eater.com/2019/12/16/21003452/japan-kissaten-tra...) Also: IRL "arriving at the thing" (say finding an interesting magazine in the doctors office) means that I can read what is inside. Unlike the internet nowadays ("you reached your monthly quote of 5 articles")
  - mhh__ 7y ago
    I've never known any different. The private eye only publishes in print so it's paper until I die (or the paper folds)
- slfnflctd 7y ago
  All of those things have been given interactive platforms in pre-internet settings: book clubs, museums, galleries and film festivals. It's of course important to have the option to enjoy them by yourself at times-- but you can do this with games, too. Nearly all visual & audio art can be presented in a game-like environment (such as a customized VR setting), so in a way a game engine is a superset of every piece of art in those categories. And they will all continue to exist, because part of art is confining your expression to a defined medium to intensify your focus on it.
  - nl 7y ago
    For me the lack of interactivity is the feature.
ErikAugust 7y ago
I’d go as far to say that the majority of the applications people use today that aren’t strictly business productivity tools are, more or less, games. This includes social media, fitness trackers, etc.

FooHentai 7y ago

>Cloud gaming means you will be able to take your game “everywhere” and avoid dreaded 20-minute updates before you can start playing. Doubt. In the same way that movies on PSP had this idea in mind but fell flat on it's face, games are strongly tied to the format and environment in which you consume them. FPS gaming with a keyboard and mouse isn't coming with you on your phone for the morning commute, and no amount of technology is going to change that because the main barrier is you won't want to play that game on your morning commute with a bunch of people around you, noise, and being unable to immerse yourself (even for reasons as simple as needing to remember to get off at your stop). That said, perhaps the converse doesn't hold true, and when you flop down in front of your screen in the evening you can get into a 6h marathon of bejeweled just the same as you were playing on the train into work that morning. Streaming isn't an enabler for this though, just cross-platform builds of your chosen game and cross-format suitability for input/output methods. >Microsoft claims Game Pass subscribers increase their overall playtime by 40% I'd really like to see retention stats alongside this to drawn an inference, because (anecdotally), I subscribed, played the shit out of the one game I subscribed for, then cancelled my sub before the next month. I definitely look like a player with increased playtime, because I deliberately did that to play a game that would have cost $$ for just $.

Pfhreak 7y ago
> FPS gaming with a keyboard and mouse isn't coming with you on your phone for the morning commute, and no amount of technology is going to change that because the main barrier is you won't want to play that game on your morning commute with a bunch of people around you, noise, and being unable to immerse yourself (even for reasons as simple as needing to remember to get off at your stop). PUBG and Fortnite are both wildly popular mobile games. I see people playing them on the bus all the time.
- FooHentai 7y ago
  And I've seen a fair number of peeps playing minecraft on ipad too, so you have a point. They are separate, partitioned instances of the games though, tailored for the format.

Pfhreak 7y ago

Video gaming has already taken over? Are there media formats that rival it from a revenue standpoint?

rhacker 7y ago
The article is contrasting it with just general TV (or movies/shows/netflix/etc...) Basically video, but non-interactive. I had the same feeling though, I didn't know what "Video Gaming" was taking over (my immediate thought was non-video gaming and quickly decided that betting at a horse race or a slot machine wasn't the comparison at hand here.
VLM 7y ago
total gaming revenue in 2017 was about $100B total newspaper advertising plus circulation revenue in 2018 was about $25B total TV advertising revenue in the USA in 2018 was $71B from one source. WarnerMedia conglomerate controls about a third of all viewership, maybe, and had $33B revenue in 2018 so the numbers seem consistent. So yeah, gaming is about four times legacy print, and maybe 50% larger than legacy video.
- fireattack 7y ago
  How is that "50% larger"? Isn't 100B the number for the whole world?
- MattRix 7y ago
  For another comparison, most people who consider themselves "gamers" wouldn't even count mobile games as "real" games... and yet: The App Store did pulled in nearly $1 billion of revenue per week in 2019. Of each week, $700 million was games. That's $37 billion just on the Apple App Store alone.
  - fragsworth 7y ago
    I wouldn't call them real games, they're more like addiction+monetization traps. Once you finish one, if you do, you never go back to the app store looking for another one. I think that will eventually kill the market.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

For a medium that has growing revenue, the major players and properties are attempting increasingly manipulative, desperate, awful, and addictive mechanisms to squeeze more revenue.

minimaxir 7y ago
To an extent. Even the most manipulative mechanics have died down amid significant player protest. (e.g. Star Wars Battlefront II) Case in point: modern console games have been trying to avoid pushing loot box mechanics as much as possible. (mobile gacha games are a bit more complicated, but even those have been made substantially less greedy)
potta_coffee 7y ago
IMO that just makes more opportunity for indies. I didn't really start exploring indie games actively until I started hating the AAA games that were coming out.
lmm 7y ago
Revenue may be growing, but so are costs and competition.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  While almost anyone can code up a game, I disagree with you overall. "AAA" games are MASSIVE undertakings of world building, art production, coding, integration, and, of course, financing. Very similar to movies and, well, goddamn everything of any complexity in our economy, a cartel has formed. There are only a handful of AAA "studios/producers".

sethammons 7y ago

While I think games are an underused medium for advertising and promoting, I'm not sure about any claim of it "taking over." Mobile games on the rise and all that, blah blah. From my own experience, as my purchasing power has grown, my gaming time has declined. I did play a lot of Breath of the Wild. However, I have another couple of games I'd like to play, but I just don't have the time.

ngngngng 7y ago
I've experienced the same. Breath of the Wild and Red Dead Redemption 2 are the only recent games that got any notable amount of playtime from me. I still buy many games once they get down to $5-$10. God of War and Spiderman were my most recent purchases since they just got down below $10, who knows if I'll ever actually play those.
- cjlars 7y ago
  The truly big games, in terms of hours played, seems to be online multiplayer. MMORPG, FPS, whatever DOTA is... those are the games where some people start putting in 1000+ hours per year. Problem is close to everyone can enjoy TV and movies, not everyone wants to do eSports.
  - whatusername 7y ago
    Those plus Civilization.
HenryKissinger 7y ago
The article is less about how much people play in an absolute sense, but more about how much people play compared to how much time they spend watching television (and streaming services like Netflix). You say that your gaming time has declined. Has your time watching tv declined comparably? Which of the two - gaming or tv - would you say is more important in your life?
- Seenso 7y ago

bitL 7y ago

Games these days already have graphics that sometimes makes them seem real (in 4k/5k on 2080Ti/Titan RTX, Ultra), especially landscapes or space settings, and often much more interesting story than most TV shows. In addition, whole sports segments like motor racing are way less fun to watch than to play a quite realistic simulator, where players are often current/former top-level real-world racers.

mhh__ 7y ago
> Games these days already have graphics that sometimes makes them seem real Assassin's creed odyssey looks fucking outrageously good - considering it has the "whole" (compressed) ancient Greece to render. I was brought up on a PS1 (still a long way from the likes of Pacman etc.) but the progress that has been made is amazing. > motor racing are way less fun to watch than to play a quite realistic simulator, This is true but (good) simulator rigs are really expensive + simracing brings you to the cold hard reality that you don't have it (Max Verstappen I ain't :| )

watwut 7y ago

Interestingly this point: > more about creating an environment that audiences never want to leave and which constantly sucks them back in Is basically why I decided to never play a game again. I just won't. And also why I am getting stressed when I see partner starting a game, cause periods of addiction and consequential sleep deprivation and all that suck not just for gamer.

VLM 7y ago

The author has an unusual water cooler. I pulled the viewership stats and well under two percent of the population watches "The Bachelor", so in somewhat more than 49 times out of 50, a water cooler discussion about legacy media would be met with "huh?". According to some Google research, there are typically around eight million concurrent fortnite players, which implies for every two people watching The Bachelor, there are three people playing fortnite. (Edited: I made a major math error in that Bachelor is a special weekly event, and those fortnite events pull more like 10M concurrent, whereas I was comparing regular gameplay numbers. So comparing "weekly special events" across media formats, its more like there's about five fortnite players for every two bachelor viewers.) The odds of a water cooler conversation about "So... tilted towers, or the dusty divot?" are about 50% more likely to be successful than something Bachelor inspired like "So... Peter or Colton?" (edit: actual number closer to 250% as per above edit. In summary you can ignore legacy media and just talk about modern video games when you're trying to socialize, especially if both parties are non-senior citizens) I will say the pacing of the experience is kinda the same; about 99% waiting and listening to sizzle, and about 1% steak where its actually interesting.

Seenso 7y ago
> The odds of a water cooler conversation about "So... tilted towers, or the dusty divot?" are about 50% more likely to be successful than something Bachelor inspired like "So... Peter or Colton?" You're assuming that Bachelor watchers and fornite players are randomly distributed across water coolers, when they clearly aren't. For instance: water cooler conversations about the Bachelor may typically be extremely successful because the only people who watch it are in environments with a concentration of other fans. There are lots of other variables at play. IMHO, videogames aren't going to take over, they're just going further increase media fragmentation in certain demographic categories.
owlninja 7y ago
10M adults?
majormajor 7y ago
You'd also want to know recurring rates, 30-day unique numbers, and stuff like that... but even aside from all that... Traditionally media product consumption is very age-stratified, with people time constraints and choices changing with phases of life. Even historically pre-games, this would apply to the types of shows or movies, so the most popular teen show in the world may not dominate office chit-chat the same way the most popular-among-adults entertainment would, say Monday Night Football. Now there are way more forms in play then there used to be. Fortnite is very new. Gaming participation among my age group (millennial) certain has changed with aging, as many of my former die-hard gamer friends no longer devote nearly as much attention to it, but have picked up "old person" habits like passively watching HGTV while doing household chores instead. Similarly, even now when I'm working with very gamer-heavy coworkers... it's not Fortnite. So it's entirely possible for something to dominate in revenue and overall any-single-instance participation numbers yet be less relevant to the "mainstream" mid-20s-to-middle-aged conversation... It's also possible for that conversation to continue to fracture.

rconti 7y ago

Is number of users/percent of addressable market going up, or just spend from the same existing userbase? (I did some strategic search-on-page-ing, but didn't find anything addressing it, and as a non-gamer, the breathless excitement about the topic was exhausting) I get the general impression that 'casual gaming' (which takes me back to the bad old days of Zynga) was bringing in new users by the truckload, but I don't really feel it "in the real world"

georgeecollins 7y ago

I agree with most of this, except that I think comparing video game services to video streaming services is misleading. As the author points out, video game content can have a much longer lifespan than linear content, so people skip around a lot less. If you like crime TV shows you can watch all the episodes of a crime TV show and then try another show and another show and there is an ongoing demand for similar content. If you like Fortnite you play more Fortnite. You might try another game like Fortnite, but only one or two games and you are probably going to settle on one. Same if you are a fan of CoD, GTA, Madden, etc. In general you are not trying a new game every month the way you might see a new movie or read a new book. There are some gamers on Steam who try lots and lots of different games all the time. Everything well reviewed, things on sale.. etc. My kids are like that. But gamers like that are rare. 95% of the people on Steam play two games or one exclusively. Therefore I don't see a rise of services that are like "Netflix" for gamers. Digital DRM channels like Steam, Origin, Epic, etc. will continue to thrive because they let you buy the thing you really want. I question the long term major success of things like Apple Arcade. People who will pay for games want to pay for the game they want most. They don't mind getting other games, but having a library to sample is of dubious value. I can see the point if you are a parent and you are buying for your kids so it will continue. Otherwise I think this article is great. Yay gaming industry!

vermilingua 7y ago
Have you got any evidence for that, other than what your kids play? Most of the people I know that play video games play a wide range, and I highly doubt that steam could have been a fraction as successful as it is if “95% of the people play one game exclusively”.
- georgeecollins 7y ago
  >> Have you got any evidence for that, other than what your kids play? I hear your doubts. To be clear: I never said 95% of the people play one game exclusively. I said 95% play two or fewer games. What I should have said was probably 90% of the people play two or fewer games in a year which I think is more accurate. How can Steam make so much money? Well playing two games doesn't mean you own two games. Many many games are "purchased" on Steam and never played at all. The two games do change over time, though not quickly. Also, there are a lot of people out there with Steam accounts! Besides my kids as evidence, I can't really link to research I look at. I am a 25 year game industry veteran who runs the interactive division of a small entertainment company. So I guess I can site myself as an expert :) Which you can reject.

wruza 7y ago

>And no one chooses not to game because there’s a branching narrative available instead. This hypothesis is late a little. When a new game comes out that is not of a particularly comfortable genre, many gamers just watch letsplays (letsREplays in case of RTS with top players) and have the same fun. Many gamers are not okay with like Sekiro, DS, other timing/apm-heavy games, but the games themselves are good to watch and players/commenters are as great. It is also consumable without a PC. What no one really chooses to watch is an idiotic tv-style narrative with repetitions, catch-factoids, watchtotheend baits and other annoying stamps. TV is not dead, it’s its hosts and managers are dinosaurs who stuck in the last century with their auditory and attention retaining methods. I (and I bet many others) would watch broadcast TV at fixed times daily, if it had at least one channel that doesn’t suck. Because it is usually of much better picture quality than youtube’s streaming compression rules. Just fire all your content editors and selfish hosts, contract best of 300-500 yt channels for pixel-accurate fullhd+ content and all our evenings are yours again.

nitwit005 7y ago

If this had been published 20 years ago, I'd totally agree, but we already seem to be entering an era where video gaming is starting to cannibalize itself. There are young people playing mobile games who seem completely uninterested in consoles. Also perhaps missing some negative trends. Saying user-generated content is important is true, but companies fight against it more than they used to. The more games rely on paid DLC, or cash shops for things like costumes, the less they want to allow things like modding, as it can directly undermine it. I never bought the Skyrim DLC because there were tons of great mods for free.

xmonkee 7y ago

This analysis is completely missing out on the auteur angle of media production. Games Are Not Art (Yet). Even if they get immensely popular, they will not be as culturally relevant as movies or books. A mind like Orson Welles will never be compelled to make the Citizen Kane of games. I think at some point cookie cutter cinema like Marvel will seamlessly blend into the cultural domain of video games. Movies like that are already video games in cinema form, in a sense. OTOH, there is no equivalent of a video game that is an actual piece of art. (This is all very subjective, I know, but the subjective dimension has to be considered in a discussion about the relevance of a medium)

moretai 7y ago
Sorry to do this, but then what is Art? Movies are made by corporations backed by millions of dollars. There have been incredible moments that I've experienced in video games, whether it be a cutscene, or gameplay. I've been moved to emotion. In awe. Not comparing Kojima to Welles, but isn't MGS his singular vision?
munificent 7y ago
> Games Are Not Art (Yet). But pigment smeared on a piece of wood is? > they will not be as culturally relevant as movies or books. I'm sorry you missed the memo, but games are more culturally relevant than books now. It makes me sad too. > A mind like Orson Welles will never be compelled to make the Citizen Kane of games. This sentence is equivalent to "A mind like Langston Hughes will never be compelled to make the Mulatto of films." Except, well, there is Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, so it's obviously wrong. Your sentence probably is too. Will Wright, Sid Meier, Markus Persson, Shigeru Miyamoto, etc. You may think, "These people are not the stature of Orson Welles", but you'll be hard pressed to come up with a definition of "stature" that isn't basically just equivalent to "I'm trying to evaluate games as if they were movies". Koyaanisqatsi would fare poorly if you evaluated it as if it were a play, but it is certainly art and a good film.
waddlesworth 7y ago
I definitely disagree with this, it sounds like you're only taking into account the big budget titles that the media talks (and complains) about. My favourite story game, Life is Strange from DONTNOD, literally brought me to tears. Going through the Steam reviews, you'll find this is a common reaction. It was still in my mind weeks after I had completed it. Easily the most compelling piece of entertainment (and yes, Art) that I have ever experienced. No movie I have ever watched has solicited that response. Even something like the quest line in Warframe I've found more compelling than most movies (shout out to DE's writers on this one). It's hard to say for Citizen Kane specifically, but I'd wager more people have seen Avengers: Endgame than any particular contemporary equivalent. Just as more people have played Fortnite than either of the games I've mentioned above. You can definitely find truly powerful art in the video game medium, if you're willing to look.

ArtWomb 7y ago

>>> Unprecedented Content Leverage The other day I was in the mood for some "Crossy Road". I had deleted it from my Kindle years ago to curb my time suck. Now it's not in the store anymore. Replaced by a new version from the same developer, "Hipster Whale", but re-branded as a tie-in with Disney characters. The new art is flat and unremarkable. Where the original was really charming. And actual user performance is virtually unplayable. A far cry from the immortal re-playability of the original. Not to mention the ubiquitous promotional dark patters, the pernicious in-app purchase harpings, the auto play trailers with 1x1px cancel buttons that link to a store and thrash game state, loot boxes, and characters from edge IP no one has ever heard of. Instead of the original's unforgettable characters such as "Frankenstein" "Disco Zoo" and "Kimchi". And yet this version is probably more popular than ever! With a burst of revenue to boot. If the market is speaking it really begs to question. Besides ISVs on zero budgets, who will invest in "pure" action-arcade oriented video games?

DerekL 7y ago
That's weird that you couldn't find the original Crossy Road. The website says it's available from Amazon. I've played both games on iOS, and I haven't noticed a performance difference between them. Also, the original still gets some new characters every so often, while Disney Crossy Road hasn't gotten new characters in two years. https://www.crossyroad.com https://www.crossyroad.com
- ArtWomb 7y ago
  Had to reset device (3rd gen fire hd) but finally installed. Still find classic version framerate much better than disney ;)
bananaboy 7y ago
Not sure why you couldn't find it but Disney Crossy Road and Crossy Road are both available on the major app stores.

rolltiide 7y ago

And now I'd like to see a renowned woman in analyst come to the same conclusions!

EamonnMR 7y ago

Can we talk about those dreaded twenty minute updates? As someone who no longer has unlimited gaming time to burn, enormous updates that do nothing but make minor balance tweaks are the bane of my gaming experience.

013a 7y ago
Cloud gaming may help this, but realistically: the fact that you notice updates (on fast internet) is really a tech problem that even local-rendering traditional consoles can solve. Background updating should be a thing. It is available on every major console. It never works. That can be fixed. Additionally, there have been rumblings about where innovation is going to surface in the next generation of consoles. One of the more consistent themes is the handling of downloads; it'll be easier for developers to "shard out" their game into the components that, say, a particular mode or level or segment need, in order to get players into the game as quickly as possible. It may be a 50gb game, but you'll only have to download 3gb of it to get started. We're seeing some of this on the XB1/PS4 today, but usually its very binary: Ready to Play, then Full Download. Next gen consoles will get much more specific and optimized. I believe (don't quote me on this) Sony has outright said that their goal is: you buy a game and you play it instantly, with no cloud rendering/streaming; just really smart handling of downloads and packaging. The most ironic thing about gaming over the past generation is that games always used to be like this: you buy a disk/cartridge, and you're playing. Nowadays, you buy a disk, the disk has to install to the drive, then there's a day 1 update; its a total mess. We'll see how the next generation looks, but I doubt very much the situation will look much better for people with bad internet. If you've got great internet though, maybe we'll be close to the way it looked in the past.

cookie_monsta 7y ago

There's a point that the article only brushes on that seems important. My generation (born in early 70's) was the first to really come up with access to video games pretty much as a given. We had space invaders etc in the arcades (or wherever else they could fit a cabinet), hand-held Nintendo and basic home consoles in primary school and then of course came the boom with PC, PS, X-Box and all that followed. But a lot of people only a few years older than me are just as dismissive about games now as they were then - this is kids' stuff, a waste of time and money. I'm not an obsessive gamer, but I do play every now and then and I absolutely see games as just another option on the entertainment landscape. And being that older people weren't into them, I guess I'd always had the thought in the back of my mind that games were something you grew out of, like binge drinking or not caring about your retirement (your examples may vary). But the other day I was playing with friends and I looked around at these ~50 year olds and realised we're never going to "grow out" of this - particularly if the hardware and software just keep improving the way they have. So for me one of the big reasons that gaming will keep growing is because those older, non-gaming generations will die out, replaced by new generations who start gaming ever earlier while eventually you may find yourself playing call of duty with a platoon of 80+ year-olds.

agumonkey 7y ago
I'm a tad younger than you and I'd like your opinion. I stopped caring about the gaming industry because 1) even if it's entertainment, I think the deep value is .. as a kid thing. It's not dismissive, I just think that gaming value has limits. It's a dreamy world you interact with and that fits the younger brain. As adults you'd rather master the real world more. 2) I find games today not much more original than in the past, it plateau-ed somehow [0] and they're mostly selling more technical oomph to justify new things. [0] to be honest I interact very lightly with games, only a cousin younger than I show me some stuff, this plus the fads you can hear about online. Do you really think a PS5 game will be that much more enjoyable than a PS2 game ? The other question .. well you answered it. You and your friends are still into them.
- cogman10 7y ago
  I interact less with games not because I don't like playing them but because I have far less time for them. Honestly, I do casual games a lot more simply because they are easier to pick up and put down. Gaming got me into programming (mods are fun).

pattisapu 7y ago

All of this ignores the elephant in the room. NetHack 3.6.4 released!

iRobbery 7y ago
or the comeback of vinyl, nice to see that purple curve going up again. :)

amiantos 7y ago

Article seems to forget that there are vast swaths of the population that do not play games. They do not have the patience to learn how to play games, not even console games with simpler controls. Even casual games require some level of skill to play, or they're not any fun, and the joy of television is that you do not need any special skill to enjoy it. This isn't even getting into people who view games as a waste of time, worse than television--at least television can sometimes teach you something, most games do not. You could try to argue that because a lot of children play games, future generations will be more game-focused, but I still don't believe that it's even close to a simple majority of children who like playing games as much as watching video content. Video content will always win because they don't take much (or any) energy (physical, mental, or emotional) to enjoy. I think most people find that you reach a point in the day where you're too tired to literally do anything else (no reading, no gaming) but stare at video until you're ready to fall asleep.

sgarman 7y ago
Get in line. People have been making that argument since the dawn of time. Even "writing" was heavily criticized over memorization and oral story telling. Each criticism declaring the end and ruin of civilization. If I had to pick one of them to actually make this complaint against it would be computer (AI) generated content optimized for clicks on video websites (think kids videos on youtube).
- nl 7y ago
  It sounds like you think the OP is making a moral argument against games, but I don't believe they are. I have no moral issue with time spent on games. My son plays quite a lot and I think that's fine. I have zero interest in them though. There are a lot of reasons for this, but they aren't moral reasons - just preferences. I'd note that this also reflect in my lack of interest in board/card games. I know a lot of people like me, from all age groups - they'll watch video content but have no interest in playing games. I think that the article author misses that.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago

adnjoo 7y ago

Na.. gaming is intensive. Sometimes I just want to sit back, relax, let my brain go to zombie mode after work :P Not decide, and clicky stuff

mhh__ 7y ago
If you can afford it VR is fantastic for "relaxing" - Scare-quotes because I'm thinking of beatsaber which can leave you out of breath if you have bad technique or are unfit. Smack some blocks in time with music - good exercise too.

kromem 7y ago

No, it won't. While there are outstanding single player narrative experiences leveraging the format to further the narrative, there's nothing like a good TV show or movie for joint attention. When enjoying a narrative with friends or a loved one many people will not want to pause to argue furiously over what dialogue choice to make or how to deal with a moral dilemma. Games are a fantastic medium. But there have limitations, just as every other medium does. Remember when radio was going to make the written word obsolete? Or TV kill off sound-only formats and movie theaters? The medium is an integral part of the message. Video games are a new medium that will be added to the mix, not replace it, just as every media before it.

GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
Non-interactive fictional media - I want someone to tell me a story. Interactive fictional media - I want to be in the story / make my own story. I think we're living in a golden age to be honest.
crummy 7y ago
How much TV do you think is watched with others?
- watwut 7y ago
  A lot, actually. It is probably easiest way how the couple can do something together, rest and cuddle while doing it and have something to talk about afterwards. You can do it together with kids while browsing on the phone - you are there and available while not forced to participate too much too.
alexgmcm 7y ago
Playing Until Dawn with my colleagues at lunch was awesome. I think there is definitely a space for interactive movie style games. I want Man of Medan on Stadia!
baby 7y ago
I’m not sure why you say that video fames are a new medium. We’ve had video game for a pretty long time.

m3kw9 7y ago

Problem with games is sometimes it gets way repetitive depending on the design of the game

MayeulC 7y ago
Some (especially MMO) are designed the same way modern social networks are: to make you spend as much time as possible in-game. This increases the number of players, which makes the game more attractive.

aaron695 7y ago

There are 6 billion viewers still slowing joining Hollywood's streaming media, it's being tapped in the movie industry well, TV is the next stop. It'll take decades to get the full market. That's a lot of up coming growth. Plus as billions start getting leisure time, both Video Gaming and Media will grow, not sure analysing the internal market makes a lot of sense. "7 Reasons Why Video Gaming Will Take Over" has no real meaning without some sort timelines and estimates. In 100 years time we will all just jack into VR..... meh sure. The fact the author seems to not fully understand the current limitations of Video Games points me to they are jumping the gun.

danans 7y ago

> The goal is typically less about art (e.g. The Irishman) or even editorial vision (e.g. Black Panther as part of the MCU), and more about creating an environment that audiences never want to leave ... everything is about the player, not the storyteller. > One can debate how this orientation limits the artistic potential of the category. The video game interaction model, which emphasizes freedom for the user within an environment, is at odds with storytelling, in which the framing, tone, pacing, and narrative have to be tightly controlled. But more practically, the artistic and narrative potential is limited because art and good storytelling aren't really what the gaming audience demands. Before gaming "takes over" attention from storytelling media, it will need to somehow gain the narrative power of movies, TV, podcasts, and similar media, because human beings love storytelling - as we have for millenia. Even "reality" TV, whatever one may think of its artistic merit, has a relatable narrative substructure that exceeds that of video games by a long shot.

friendlybus 7y ago
Gaming has a narrative format. Moving through a series of rooms that reveal the story. BioShock, Stanley parable, half life, the witness, max payne, spec ops the line ect have been doing this for a while. From a semiotics perspective the story format is to move a player character through a series of rooms that reveal the story to you via characters and world. The game designer has near total control over space, pushing players through portals and dropping them from heights into new worlds. Worlds must be constructed in near complete 3d. The game designer has limited control over time. An increase of time pressure has to be applied carefully. The player controls movement through time. Film controls time with near complete control via cuts. Film can easily lose track of space and geometry. They only have to film a section of space that looks realistic to a 2d camera. I'd argue the conflict you are describing is a desire for the artist to control the viewer's time whilst you are participating in the art form. Games that do that are RPGs with levelling progression that tune the player's actions to maximize synchronicity with spawn rates, item drops, refills, selling timers and more. Single player architecture and audio book simulators like BioShock do not aim at that level of controlling time. TV does, film does even more so, you give up control over time to a predetermined 24fps film.
baby 7y ago

michalf6 7y ago

I'm hopeful it won't, a growing subset of young people is actively rejecting video games as they introduce harm and escapism to their lives. My best friend was set back in life a whole year because he got sucked in Leauge of Legends. We need to start having a discussion not about video games causing violence as it's proven to be bollocks, but about video games causing passivness and apathy.

endymi0n 7y ago

I respect Matt a lot for his continued valuable insight on the streaming universe, but I think he goes into the wrong direction here (probably some confirmation bias involved). > Most media categories are confined by three challenges. First is their finite length. At a certain point, you reach the last page of a book, last episode of a TV show, or end of a podcast. This is a feature, not a bug. With the massive, coordinated attack of the attention economy on everyone's focus, I predict a new wave of burned victims who voluntarily eject from "hedonistic treadmill" type games where you play all day long and never reach the end in order to go back to completing wholesome experiences. There's a whole generation to still discover what an end game screen looks like, but once they've seen a great and hard earned one, it's hard to go back on that satisfaction.

Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
A game can have no ending because it's an endless grinding treadmill (like most pay-to-win mobile games and their most satanic incarnation, gacha games, where they endlessly introduce new characters to milk the player base for money) or it can have no ending because it's a sandbox where you can make your own story, like TES Daggerfall or Ultima Online (Daggerfall did have a main quest with endings but many players choose to just live their life, buy houses, become the leader of factions and so on). Then there are also games that do have a restricted length but they generate very different stories so they have almost endless replayability, like Civilization games or (if I may digress a bit into a totally different thing) AI Dungeon 2. In the former kind of games, indeed infinite length is not an advantage, but I think in the latter two kinds, it is.

eeZah7Ux 7y ago

> In the 19th century, the idea of “leisure” versus “work” emerged. huh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otium Frow wikipedia: The favorable sense of otium in Ciceronian Latin reflects the Greek term σχολή (skholē, "leisure", a meaning retained in Modern Greek as σχόλη, schólē); "leisure" having a complex history in Greek philosophy before being used in Latin (through Latin the word became the root of many education-related English terms, such as school, scholar and scholastic).

keiferski 7y ago

I think this argument is backwards. Games will become more like video, in that they are passive consumption, narrative-driven experiences, not the other way around. Most games now still require too much buy-in, too much effort to learn and understand. The format is still an order of complexity above a book or video; it would be better to compare video games to other (immensely popular) games like chess, Go, or Backgammon.

OJFord 7y ago
Netflix released that Black Mirror episode that's a sort of 'choose your own adventure' game though. Not that that necessarily makes me disagree about the effort/buy-in - I still haven't watch/played it.

burntoutfire 7y ago

What game proponents seem to miss is that most people are mostly interested in other people (we are predominantly social creatures after all). Books, movies, tv shows can create extremely lifelike immersive experiences that center around people. Games, on the other hand, suck at it - humans are way to hard for a computer to simulate. The current fallback is to have scripted bits of bad movies/books embedded in between the mechanistic gameplay, which makes most people just want to grab for the real thing (movie/book). Hence games are mostly popular among young people, who haven't developed much taste yet and who have a lot of time to kill, and fill it with the mechanistic gameplay.

dgb23 7y ago
There are quite a number of games which are praised for achieving an emotional connection to the presented characters.
baby 7y ago
Weird, I would say the opposite. Video games, and now VR, are the most immersive experience you can get. I wonder if you would change your mind after playing a game like the last of us.

SergeAx 7y ago

> Gaming is Replicating the TV Package Not sure about this one. Most of the time TV was either free or close to free, because it was a state-sponsored political media too. Even now TV content is subscription-based; pay per view is marginal part. Videogame subscription services are giving access to some second grade games and some bonus content and maybe discounts, but not to premium titles. In fact, most premium titles are subscription-based themselves. It is like if you have a Disney+, but have to pay extra for Mandalorian subscription.

onefuncman 7y ago

>It’s true that to date, gaming IP has not delivered strong results at the box office. Warcraft (2016) made $440M worldwide on a $160M budget, mostly in China IIRC.

vonseel 7y ago

Author is confusing active screen-browsing (TikTok) active digital pastimes (gaming) with passive leisure activities that also involve screens, and before screens, radio. Before the age of TV, you could lay on couch with eyes closed listening to radio shows. You can still do this technically even with TV shows, but it’s obviously not as good. Watching TV is a completely passive activity, especially watching TV shows like on Netflix; maybe sports are more active watching. TikTok is just scrolling social media, you have to keep your hand on the screen constantly to browse that corner of the Internet. And that’s really all the social networks are, a corner of the Internet. With a bunch of different people and interests promoting their own ideas or selves. You can’t lay down and passively watch it; you have to browse and control your destination. There will always be people who simply don’t find video games amusing or prefer passive activities like laying and watching shows. I had the opposite thought as the author earlier tonight - Netflix is taking over the world; it already did. It seems like every few days new content is showing up for people to consume; as a heavy consumer, I think part of that is because Netflix knows they are feeding the hunger and they never want you to have a night alone on the couch where you can’t find something to watch. Apple TV+ will only intensify this. I bet there are a bunch of single, young people who have little social life and spend most of their free time watching Netflix. People of all ages and demographics, really, families too, but I guess I identify and understand the first group. After a few days of binge watching, you feel woven with the characters and it feels like a part of your social life possibly more so than that friend you haven’t seen in months/etc. Just for a few moments until you move on to something else, you feel like you know these characters. Like you’ve lived in their little world. I’ve heard the same things about people who watch high-profile gamers play, or YouTuber fans. So maybe the really scary thing here is that Nf, YT, gaming and other avenues make entertainment sooo cheap and sooo accessible nowadays that real, in-person relationships are being replaced by something less tangible - and much less valuable. Reminds me of the article I read a few days ago about a person listening to “pretend boyfriend pillow talk” on YouTube. Apparently these things help with feelings of loneliness but they. Just. Aren’t. Real.

zPwoo 7y ago

Honestly, I'm hoping this isn't the case. Gaming becoming more and more popular recently has only just been detrimental to the industry as a whole as we've come to learn that shareholders are willing to sacrifice game quality for profits. Every new release is just eye-candy and a thinly-veiled money grab while delivering shallow gameplay. It's very disheartening. Especially when you consider the fact that for the younger gamers this is all they know. They never got a chance to see video games unaffected by lootboxes, B2P games with cash shops or "free to play" games that aren't blatantly pay to win. Let's not even touch on the shady & dehumanizing labor practices the entire gaming industry seems normalizes. The future of gaming is anything but positive for me. I feel like most people are mistaking the success of new technologies (AR & VR) as the success of video games. Most videos games release in the last 5 years are absolute shite and the ones that aren't are marginal at best.

talles 7y ago

I recently hooked up my old SNES on a CRT TV, and the input lag difference from a conventional TV and a PS4 bluetooth controller is staggering. I can only imagine the input lag horror on cloud gaming. Maybe for a story-driven or turn-based game would be fine. Maybe.