The Gaming Industry: The Growth Of The Video Game Industry

The video game industry frequently connotes and restricts itself to the hotbed of console gaming. However, this segment, while quite large, fails to accurately represent the gaming industry’s economic, social, and interactive structure. And the game (or gaming) industry refers all to often to gambling rings. Thus, the “industry of games,” as a collection of interactive media, provides a more robust, inclusive notion of play that transcends platforms, roots of origin, and digital versus non-digital spaces. Analyzing the industry of games from past to future, with significant consideration given to present challenges faced therein, requires a holistic view of history and a critical evaluation of scholars’ and developers’ commentary on games as a whole.
Graphing the Industry
To illustrate the industry of games as it currently stands, the infographic denotes the different industry players in relation to each other and the channels through which players access media. The graphic shows a cross-section of a sphere that allows us to see inside the “gaming sphere.” A spherical shape was chosen to

The growth of the indie game sector has enabled smaller developers to produce work on a budget than AAA titles and still reach an audience. Recent games such as Undertale (2015) and Stardew Valley (2016) can find major success online, despite being developed by only a few people. This is a result of digital marketplaces such as Valve’s Steam platform, which encourages the dissemination of indie games via its Steam Greenlight system (“What is Steam Greenlight,” n.d.). By Nature, Indie Games stand outside of large corporate Developers, which act as the mainstream producers. Lipkin (2013) suggests that the nature of indie as a notion exists solely to oppose mainstream products. Thus, in the graph, only Indie Developers have the ability to produce such