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Video Games Now Account For More Than Half of UK Entertainment Market (independent.co.uk)
The video games sector now accounts for more than half of the entertainment market in UK, according to new figures. From a report: The Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) said the gaming market's value rose to $4.85bn, more than double what it was worth in 2007. It now makes gaming a larger market than video and music combined for the first time. The figures show three games -- Fifa 19, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 -- each sold more than one million physical units in the UK across games consoles during 2018. ERA chief executive Kim Bayley said: "The games industry has been incredibly effective in taking advantage of the potential of digital technology to offer new and compelling forms of entertainment. Despite being the youngest of our three sectors, it is now by far the biggest."
It's not as bleak as you put it. First of all, RPGs still exist, despite MMOs. Mostly because, despite the name, they're two very different kinds of games. Yes, you play a character in both of them. But that's where the similarities end. In a single player RPG, your exploits matter. The world can be shaped by your deeds and misdeeds, something that is completely impossible in an MMO. If what you did mattered in the world there, the next player couldn't experience the same game. If in your RPG you slayed the dragon of eternal destruction and got that sword of ultimate awesomeness, the dragon is dead and the sword is claimed, and townspeople will sing praises for you. In an MMO, the dragon respawns a few minutes later and drops another ultimate sword. And nobody talks about it because MMO worlds are static. They cannot change based on the actions of a single person because, well, how should anyone else play them if they did?
Instead it's mostly a matter of cooperative collection of loot.
But that aside, microtransactions have become a pest in games, but only because we let them. There is actually a very, very simple way to not participate in them: Don't buy games that have them. Yes, believe it or not, such games do exist.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The video games sector now accounts for more than half of the entertainment market in UK,
... the gaming market's value rose to $4.85bn
... Despite being the youngest of our three sectors, it is now by far the biggest."
However, that amount is smaller than the BBC's budget: £5Bn, or $6Bn. So the reality is that the entire gaming market isn't even bigger than a single broadcaster.
The entertainment market must include TV. Just like it must include films, music, print (yes, there is still some left). If you wanted to stretch it you could probably say restaurants, bars and drugs count as "entertainment", too.
This sounds like someone trying to mislead to gain publicity. They might have meant just the online entertainment market. But they should not say simply the "entertainment market".
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons