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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."
... of course it is, the reality is when you put microtransactions and gambling mechanics inside games.
One of the reasons it's grown so much is because the game playing masses on both PC and phones is fucking tech illiterate. Steam, mmo's, mobile gambling/gacha games could only exist in a world where the average gamer is bum fuck moron.
Watching RPG's gettting rebranded MMO's in the 90's to stick drm server lock into them and charge a subscription was annoying, the fact that the public fell all over themselves to pay money for software they didn't own or control incentivized the entire industry to code games in a way that the public never controls the game. Watching Team fortress 2 going from paid product to f2p microtransaction ridden game was pretty much the death knell for game ownership. Now that even fucking starcraft 2 is in on it.
Sad place where PC gaming and software ownership (aka windows 10 as a service we definitely are in an idiocracy) ended up due to the masses getting internet.
mindless zombies
Is someone who plays a game more of a "mindless zombie" than someone who watches TV?
I'm not saying either activity is probably very healthy if overdone- but surely, playing games where you think and interact is less "mindless zombie" than watching TV where you don't interact at all.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch