How Video Game industry has evolved over the Years

How Video Game Industry has Evolved over the Years

The video game industry is the economic sector involved in the development, marketing and monetization of video games. It encompasses dozens of job disciplines and its component parts employ thousands of people worldwide.

The beginning

Prior to 1970’s there were no significant commercial aspects of the video game industry. The development of cathode ray-tube the core technology behind television created several of the first video game. In 1947 Thomas T Gold Smith Jr and Este Ray Mann filed a “patent for cathode ray tube amusement device”. Their game which uses a cathode ray tube hooked to an oscilloscope display challenges player to fire a gun at target.

One of the first known example is space war developed by Harvard and MIT employees Martin, Gratez, Steve Rusell and Wayne Wittanen. In 1971 the arcade game computer space was released. The following year Atari released the first commercial successful video game, Pong the original arcade version which sold over 19000. The same year saw the introduction of video games to the home market with the release of early video games console the Magnavox Odyssey.

The industry would eventually be revitalized by the release of Nintendo Entertainment system, which resulted in home console market being dominated by Japanese companies such as Nintendo Switch. The Nintendo entertainment system released in 1985 helped to revive the American video games industry after the video game crashed in 1983. The latter part of the decade saw the rise of Gameboy handled system. In 1990 the PlayStation was the most popular video game console of the fifth generation which saw the common adoption of CD media. The six generation Play Station 2 is the best-selling console of all time.

21st Century Development

In 2000 the video game industry is a judgment of development; profit still drives technological advancement which is then used by other industry sectors. Technologies such as Smartphones, virtual reality augmented reality are major drives for game hardware and game development. The 2010’s have seen a larger shift to casual and mobile gaming, in 2016 the mobile video game market is estimated to have taken $38 billion in revenues compared to $6 billion for the console market and $33 billion for personal computer gaming.

Major Companies

Sony CE is the most financially successful video game company in the world. Sony has built around the high successful PlayStation console. SCE was founded in Tokyo on November 16 1993. 

Nintendo is an oldest company; they came into known in US as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. After this came the Nintendo 64, the Gameboy all of the highly beloved game consoles, games and character that Nintendo is known for. 

Electronic Art, often abbreviated EA, is also worth mentioning for its age. It is one of the oldest software companies that have remained a successful business. It was originally founded in 1982, and it is best known for its sport representation and in its yearly games like NFL, NBA and FIFA.  

In 1999 BMG games was taken over by Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar game was born. The development company is most well-known for its Grand Theft Auto series. In 2014, Rockstar shipped more than 250 million copies of its games. Rockstar is also responsible for the popular and highly praised Red Dead series. While all of their game has a similar style and feel, they are all pretty unique from the main market of games. 

Potomac Computer Systems was founded by Tim Sweeny in 1991 while he was a student at University of Maryland. Potomac turned into Epic Mega games, an attempt to make this one person studio seem larger. In 2012 the company moved to a new “game as a service” business model that has now become popular and announced a new game called Fortnite. It wasn’t until 2017 the Fortnite was made public. Fortnite’s battle royal mode quickly gained audience. Epic managed to break new ground by convincing Sony to allow cross play with Windows and Xbox and eventually all platforms. 

Video game industry earns more than Movies and Music industry

The video game industry is growing so fast that some believe that it will reach $300 billion by 2025. With billions of dollar profit and over 2.5 billion games around the world. The new trends free- to play online video games such as Fortnite and Apex Legends. Since it is completely free to register and play these games some people think that the gaming industry isn’t making much money of them. The free to play game such as Fortnite still brings in billions of dollars in revenue each year. The video game industry generated worldwide sales of $19.8 billion, $20.8 billion in 1994 and estimated ton $30 billion in 1998. Consider the top blockbuster movie to date Avengers Endgame. When it premiered on April on 16 it raked in over US $858,373,000 during its opening weekend. It even surpassed last year’s Avengers Infinity war which generated US $678,865,428 in gross revenue. These films received so much attention and hype from the public; they failed to outperform the highest grossing entertainment launch in history. Grand Theft Auto V earned US $1 billion in just over three days in 2013 when it was released. 

Written by

Abdul Moeez Mirza