American Gaming Culture
Video games have taken over the world From Japan to America. It's considered to be one of the largest entertainment industries in America. Passing Hollywood the question isn't who's playing games, it's who's getting involved, it's how are they playing games and what games are the most interesting to American culture. Over 67% percent of households in America alone has a console and with 65% percent of them having someone who plays at least an hour of games. Over 155-160 million people play games in America. The overall value estimate of the video game industry in America is over 30.4 billion dollars that's including hardware, accessories, VR, and games. As you can see gaming is huge in America and there are multiple ways to experience gaming.
Mobile: has dominated the gaming market from Candy Crush to Clash of Clans, and some console games have gone mobile like Pokemon Go and Mario Run which has helped to spread the mobile game market, The benefits of mobile gaming you can play whenever on the bus, on the train, and during work. With most games being free or under 10$ Consumers can download a game and delete the game without feeling like they lost out. Mobile gaming makes most of their money from in-game purchases such as more lives, faster time management, and character skins. according to statistics about 35- 40 percent of Americans play on their smartphones or tablets.
PC gaming: has been around from the start of the gaming industry, having text-based games to full-on RPGs before any other platform, has made it a dominant market since the 80s. Hosting game like league of legends, Team Fortress 2 and Counterstrike its cornered the Esports market creating a brand new way to experience gaming. Almost 97% of American households own a personal computer making the pc gaming market the highest available platform to consumers.
Esports and Gaming Content Creators: have taken over traditional media, times have changed where people prefer to watch their favorite Gaming Channels and Esports team than a new show or sports team. There have been times when more people tune into Esports Championships than traditional sports finals. Gaming channels have so much content being released with a rapid-fire audience watching their content daily. Now you can probably walk down the street and ask someone who is your favorite gaming channel, almost half the time they will give you a channel name either from youtube or twitch.
Virtual Reality: has not seen success in the PC or mobile market but it is growing in popularity because of game developers putting over large games like Doom, Resident Evil, Fallout and much more. They're a haven for indie developers who want to make a game since they support developers looking to make games for the virtual reality headsets. Several American companies have created their own headsets like Google, Facebook, Steam and several other smaller companies and they're leading the virtual console race but for now, it's still nowhere near PC or mobile markets.
Console Gaming: this is where America first really started getting into the gaming industry, sure there was arcades and the ping pong machine but it didn't really reach the audience it could get. No, it didn't reach the mass audience until Atari came along and showed the world you could play at home you no longer had to leave the safety of your home. Then there was the video game crash where no one wanted to buy a home console because of the flood of poorly designed games. Nintendo came along and fixed that, people wanted to buy a console again they were reaching the kids and their parents who grew up with Atari. Company's like Sega, Nintendo, Atari, Sony, and Microsoft lead the home consoles to greatness and they still are just in their own ways. Sega and Atari are still around but are mostly third-party company's now no longer producing consoles, they are producing games still, Sony is leading the home console market with the ps4 having over 50 million units sold worldwide, while Nintendo has taken the hybrid route where they combine the home console with the mobile console, something innovative and fresh you can play at home and on the go. Microsoft is focusing on the power and tech of their console with their announcement of the Xbox one x, the most powerful console to date.
Games are bringing us together: through the years the gaming community has grown and welcomed new people to the world of gaming. May it be from gaming with friends and family to watching Esports cheering gamers on and watching our favorite video content creators, to talking to people in forums we have grown attached to others in the gaming world and really I think that's beautiful. In America, we have one of the highest populations to grow up on gaming and to keep playing games we have adopted this art form and we don't plan to let it go.
All statistics were pulled from Entertainment Software Association here's a link to learn more about their data and research http://essentialfacts.theesa.com/mobile/)
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