What is going on in the game industry? - Post News - Brief Article - Industry Overview

Post, July, 2002 by Arthur Schwartzberg

LOS ANGELES -- At a prior E3, I tore a steering wheel completely off its base while playing a driving game. This year I went prepared to behave, though the show does not encourage this.

It's loud, exciting, glitzy, and there are no lack of scantily clad vixens, knights, gnomes, soldiers, assault type weapons and displays of extreme sports. No-body seems to monitor decibel levels, and political correctness is not a concept that computes.

Noise aside, the industry is very robust and many consider gaming to be the entertainment media of the 21st century. This is disturbing if you are older then 35, did not grow up with interactivity don't play games or if you just consider games an inferior art form. It's time to just get over it.

Some 60,000 game industry professionals attended E3, with some 400 exhibitors showing efforts from 70 countries. The show was packed, reflecting a momentum not felt recently at other entertainment media related shows.

Those who don't play or understand games have no idea of the depth of the new possibilities emerging as the underlying technologies mature. As in film, games incorporate music, story and cinematics, but additionally add the crucial element of interactivity to the mix. As in film, a lot of games are just not very good, and a lot of games -- especially at this stage of the industry's development -- cater to someone who is just not you.

Those of us who grew up with TV and film have a hard time grasping the enormous implications and potential applications of interactivity, but for all new generations, interactivity is just the way things are. This is reflected in videogame sales. Does 225 million computer games sold generated $25 billion in sales in 2001 sound like something that has taken root?

Games are an important part of the entertainment business model. It's not surprising that so many films are crossing over to create game versions and repurpose their brand for that marketplace. The crossover goes in both directions, capitalizing on any brand from wherever it gets established.

There's lots of griping about games catering to young boys. Well "duh," there is just no sense in developing a game for a population that is not interactive literate (IL), and so games are developed for younger audiences. And, reality is, about 40 percent of game players are female, according to the Interactive Digital Software Association (www.idsa.com), organizers of E3.TV and film are more mature mediums and cater to audiences of all types, ages and genders. As current game players grow older, the game industry will also deliver new kinds of games designed for more mature gamers. Hence, in a few generations gaming will be a part of everyone's entertainment experience and there will be age-appropriate content throughout the spectrum. Even now games are not as "evil" as you think with 18 of the top 20 best selling games in 2001 rated "E" for Everyone or "T" for Teen. Only two are rated "M" for Mature.

Interactivity is still an evolving medium. Film/TV is to some extent as it was at its inception. Color and sound were great innovations, but since then computer-generated graphics have represented the only dramatic change. However, computer and console games are fundamentally technology-based and their future is as open-ended as the progression of technology itself. If games keep pace, the future is almost beyond imagination.

Games today, except for the realtime cinematics, which are non-interactive, are infinitely less sophisticated in their artistic expression as compared to films. But this will change as interactive graphics engines increase in power. So, in the end, games will encompass all that films offer but will be interactive, immersive, often online and collaborative, and will actually force you to engage, think, learn, experience.

Nobody will be happier about these changes than the game developers themselves, who are in ways lower in the pecking order than their friends doing film effects. They have to deal with infinitely lower budgets ($2 to $5 million for a typical production), crude low poly models and inferior rendering in order to fit the constraints of today's realtime delivery technologies. And of course games do not get the respect among (the non-IL) adults that films do. In time, however, all this will change.

Setting the pace of change and technology are the new delivery devices, i.e. consoles, which lead of course to Microsoft. Who can ignore the XBox (and the other console players leapfrogging madly), a 128-bit game machine with a 733 MHz CPU that is highly optimized, plays DVDs and is Internet-enabled. Look five years into the future and imagine what new modes of artistic game playing and cinematic storytelling will be possible. The industry holds great promise. The medium is young, changing rapidly, technology-based and limitless in its possibilities.

You can contact Arthur Schwartzberg by e-mail at Arthur@sweetrush.com.