Depending on what you actually count as a “video game” the industry is now generating somewhere between 200 and 350 billion dollars a year in annual revenue, making it by far the largest entertainment sector in the world regardless of whatever your exact definitions may be.
More people are playing video games than ever before, they are playing them for longer, and (the not so secret reality is that) video game companies have gotten a lot better at getting money out of them while they are.
Over what should have been the best half decade in the history of the industry, the overall market is down by as much as 30% from its peak, in the same time that the broader market has more than doubled.
Sooo how is it possible that even with record sales, record new revenue streams, record numbers of new players, and record new opportunities to monetize that new audience… video game companies have still managed to screw this up so badly?
I don’t have the data Mat has, but anecdotally, I agree with him. My kid wants to sometimes play a single player game if he watches me play it and likes it, but it will always be when his friends aren’t online to play Fortnite with him. And it’s not just him, it’s all his friends and cousins and their friends and cousins. They play Fortnite / Roblox etc primarily, and occasionally, if no one is online to play that with them, they may take a look at something else.
But that’s your kid falling into that other bucket that primarily plays one of those games. It’s a fool’s errand to target that player rather the type who samples many video games on a regular basis, because your kid has already found more or less the only game he’s interested in. Meanwhile, the kind of person who plays Resident Evil is far more likely to play a dozen other games in a given year. You’re not getting “scraps” if that’s your target customer.
Well, I am not sure how game companies define their target audience, but aren’t these players part of the same “gamers” pie that all these companies want to get attention of? These kids would still be playing games if there was no Fortnite, but it’s the live service game that is keeping them so engaged that they don’t have time for much else.
Of course if they aren’t even the target customers, then that discounts this whole argument.