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Diversity, streaming reshape video games for a new generation
HONG KONG, Nov 6, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – In the quarter of a century since Sony
launched the groundbreaking PlayStation, video games have exploded into the
biggest form of entertainment in the world, and analysts say the growing
diversity of billions of players is reshaping the industry.
The Japanese tech giant and its American rival Microsoft are preparing to
launch their latest consoles next week, competing in a $160 billion global
market — bigger than film and music combined.
Earlier seen as niche entertainment usually marketed to young men, gaming
has benefited from a 1990s push to attract more customers, analysts say, with
the PlayStation leading the way in breaking down gender, age and class
barriers.
“In the last couple of decades, we have witnessed a strong move towards the
democratisation of gaming. Twenty-five years ago, gaming was still considered
by most people a marginal form of entertainment,” said Guilherme Fernandes, a
market consultant at the gaming and esports analytics firm Newzoo.
After the PlayStation came Microsoft’s Xbox in 2001 and Nintendo’s Wii in
2006, followed by the smartphone revolution as gaming’s popularity
skyrocketed.
There are 2.7 billion gamers worldwide, Newzoo estimates, and nearly half
are women.
Gamers have also become older in many major markets — the age range of the
average gamer in the United States is 35-44, according to the Entertainment
Software Association.
Affordability has also brought in a bigger audience, experts say. Sony
caused a stir with a surprisingly low price for the first PlayStation, which
proved a commercial success.
“If we correct for inflation, consoles are so much cheaper today than they
were in the 80s and 90s. It was really… an upper-middle-class kind of
entertainment at that point,” said Mikael Jakobsson, research coordinator at
the MIT Game Lab.
The impact was clear in the United States, he said, “where the PlayStation
started to appeal to lower-middle-class, working-class people in a way that
previous console generations just hadn’t”.
The spread in recent years of inexpensive yet highly capable smartphones
has further broadened audiences, with people playing games on their mobile
devices and connecting over social media.
– Ugly underbelly –
With games becoming a more universal pastime, the impression that they were
the domain of young men has been challenged.
“Developers are increasingly taking diversity seriously, expanding the
number of female and minority lead protagonists in their games,” said
Newzoo’s Fernandes.
That shift, however, has been far from smooth, and came after years of
warnings that misogyny, bullying and other toxic behaviour were rampant in
gamer culture.
The industry was forced to act after the first high-profile wave of
harassment in 2014, dubbed Gamergate, which started after an ex-boyfriend
falsely accused American game developer Zoe Quinn of seeking favourable
reviews in exchange for sex.
Quinn — who goes by non-gendered pronouns — faced rape and death threats,
and their personal information was leaked online.
Women in the industry and feminist figures were also threatened by people
angered by efforts to improve female representation in games.
Game giants were accused of tolerating or turning a blind eye to the abuse.
“It can sometimes be difficult to explain just how vicious, violent, and
cruel” Gamergate was, Anita Sarkeesian, a media critic and target of some of
the abuse, wrote on the website Polygon last year.
Major game firms have denounced such behaviour and made diversity pledges,
including more women and people from underrepresented communities as
protagonists.
Despite the efforts, critics say such abuse and content remain a problem in
the industry — among players as well as gaming companies.
Ubisoft, one of the world’s biggest game makers, dismissed some of its top
executives this year after a wave of accusations of sexism and harassment
shook the firm.
– Rise of the streamers –
It is not just gamers who are becoming more diverse, but also the ways in
which people enjoy games.
Video games are now a spectator sport too. Major tournaments attract
thousands of fans and revenues from esports are expected to rise to $1.1
billion in 2020, according to Newzoo.
Fans have also flocked to watch others play online, a social media-gaming
crossover that has pulled in some of the world’s biggest tech companies —
Amazon-owned Twitch and Google’s YouTube are two of the most popular
platforms.
“The rise of gaming streamers… has just blown up beyond any
expectations,” said MIT’s Jakobsson.
Some have suggested that video games can be seen in the same light as other
conventional spectator events.
Jesper Juul, a video game theorist at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine
Arts, had a simple explanation for the growing appeal of video games for
spectators: “It’s like watching sports, it’s not particularly strange in that
sense.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/0944 hrs