Difference in Opinion

The Associated Press reported that videogame sales were up by 57% in March, jumping to $1.7 billion. Most of the success is due to the recent release of Super Smash Bros: Brawl for the Nintendo Wii. With other blockbusters like GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 looming in the not-so-distant future, it looks as if the whole industry is going to be getting some shots of money adrenaline.

Here are some excerpts from their story with many stats from NPD analyst Anita Frazier:

“Video game software sales jumped 63 percent from March 2007 to $945.6 million, blowing past analysts’ expectations. Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter, for one, had expected game software sales to grow 47 percent over last year.

Nintendo’s ”Super Smash Bros: Brawl” for the Wii was the month’s top-selling game with 2.7 million units sold.

Coming in a distant second was ”Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2” from Ubisoft with 752,300 units and ”Army of Two” from Electronic Arts Inc. with 606,100. All three games hit store shelves in March.

Hardware sales grew 46 percent to $551.3 million from $377.9 million, with Nintendo’s Wii and portable DS far outselling every other system. The Japanese company grabbed 58 percent of the game hardware market during the month as Wii shortages seemed to abate.

Americans bought 721,000 Wiis during the month, 67 percent more than in February. The DS was the second best-selling system with 698,000 units, and Sony Corp.’s handheld PSP came in a distant third with 297,000.

Game accessories, at times an overlooked category, reaped in $220 million, up 58 percent from a year earlier. Xbox Live points and subscription cards were among the top-selling accessories in March, along with the PS3 wireless controller”

If Halo 3 was able to raise so much awareness by itself back in September, it is hard to imagine what credibility these recent stats will give the gaming industry. Gaming is viral and expanding in every direction possible; as a hobby, as a profession and as an entertainment industry. The more attention it gets from mainstream media, the more emphasis and attention to detail the developers will put into games.

The gamer can do nothing better for themselves than buy good games and skip over the bad ones. Developers see those numbers, and if they don’t then journalists will shove it down their throat. If a game does great and they grab a large profit, then they will put the same time and care into making other games like that. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? If a game flops, then they will look at other titles they had that were successful, or even other titles they didn’t make and take a lesson from them. We decide what makes a good game, and we are the evolution of this industry.

Next Generation recently posted an interesting piece where they talked to a variety of people and asked them where gaming would be in 12 years. For me this is one of those questions that can never be rightfully answered, but only hypothesized. For instance, think about how much gaming has evolved in the last 12 years. It seems like ions ago that Mario was vaulting over flat tortoises instead of his galaxy hopping he does now. As unpredictable the future for gaming is, the question of it’s role in the future is interesting to discuss.

It was an interesting choice for Next Generation to talk to Peter Moore, head of EA Sports. Moore captured a lot of attention when he resigned from his position at Microsoft to take up his new job at EA. Here is what Peter Moore had to say about gaming in the future:

“Games have a key role to play in health and wellness. People will be able to do things with games in their own houses that they just can’t do at the gym. And it’s not just about making yourself stronger and healthier but also smarter and happier. Games have the power to make people happy and to make the world a better place,. And I do mean the world, because we are now opening up massive new markets like China and India that will bring billions of gamers.“

I think the most important thing he touched on was how gaming makes people “smarter and happier.” They tend to be a stress reliever for most gamers (and a stress causer for some), and an escape from the hectic everyday norm. I don’t think anyone disputes any of those claims, except for the gaming making you “smarter” one. It is a known fact, a happier person is a healthier person. If gaming can provide that joy and entertainment, then it can make people’s lives better, and thus the world better, even if it is bit by bit.

I think the important thing that has to happen to gaming in the future is to branch out even more than it is now. Gaming will evolve, as will it’s definition. In the past gamers were the few and scarce people with the money and willingness to explore technology. Nowadays a gamer is anyone and everyone. It is harder to find something who hasn’t ever played videogames now. In the future, I think the boundaries that now define gaming need to be broken down. There will be a wider variety of interactive electronics that anyone can enjoy. The steps are already in place for that now with efforts by Nintendo to turn the Wii into an exercise machine just as much as it is a first person shooter or any other genre supporter. Other titles like Guitar Hero are attracting people who would never (and still never) call themselves “gamers.” Those people are just dipping their toes in the water to see how things feel.

As technology spreads, so will gaming. If gaming can reach out to more people and make more people happier then it could have a powerful effect on the future, one that extends beyond pixel counts and online multiplayer.