It has been popularized that entertainment means concerts, stage shows or TV shows. The need for entertaining was fulfilled in these activities, and it made us believe that only these are the forms of entertaining. But with the propagation of technology, there is a new form of entertainment, the video games. On PC, console, mobile or VR, on a single platform or multiplatform, multiplayer or single player, video games are the most up-to-date expression of entertainment.
A fast-growing industry
With an annual growth of 5 billion euros in the global market, the gaming industry recorded revenues of 109 billion euros in 2017. In the Call of Duty game, the marketing budget exceeded $ 200 million, and Call of Duty Black Ops II had sales of $ 1 billion in the first 15 days of launch. So, we see that this industry moves enviable budgets even for the much-acclaimed movie industry of Hollywood.
A new kind of sporting competition
Moreover, world championships organized title-based such as Dota 2 or Counter Strike and their online streamlining move the field of offline sports to online. An entire mirror ecosystem is given birth as a response to the organization and streamlining of popular sports competitions. However, in online, players are IDs that impose through the performance of the character or team they represent in the game. Eurosport, SkySports or CBS Sports Network are replaced by Twitch, Facebook or Youtube, and World Championship Dota 2 prizes exceed $ 20 million.
Galleries have now become groups that exceed one million members, such as the Fnatic group on Twitter. Famous video game players can collect over 1 million followers on Facebook, Twitter and Twitch, as is the case with Faker, an extraordinary South Korean player of the League of Legends game.
Video games mean intelligence and creativity
Video games are a testing environment for intelligence and creativity. Only, if we think of more than 10 million players/month of Counter Strike, of which there may be even 850,000 who play at the same time, and we are talking about the largest army of fans in the world. First person shooters (FPS) imply versatility, reflection, coordination, tactical and strategic thinking. Because there is a certain sensitivity to weapons, there is a segment of the audience who prefer titles such as League of Legends and Dota 2, more focused on reconstituting a mythological landscape with fairy tale characters.
Video games involve the audience more than any other form of entertainment
Video games have a much higher audience involvement than other types of entertainment do. Here you can be a spectator and player/actor at the same time in a global digital arena.
What is happening today in the gaming industry certifies a transition to an interactive, global entertainment form with the users playing live as avatars. Players are also co-creators of the games they play. They give feedback on what does not work or what could be improved, rate the games and are promoters of them. In other words, they take part in building the scene they play. Because video game entertainment is about what is happening in the scene as is about socializing while playing.
