Seen for decades as a curiosity and a not very serious world, the video game industry has become in recent years a giant that moves 160,000 million dollars a year, and has stopped being ignored to become an object of desire of the major technology and entertainment companies.
Silicon Valley giants such as Apple or Google, who had never before shown excessive interest in this sector, have launched their conquest with the aim of becoming the new benchmark platform capable of competing face-to-face with classic consoles and becoming the coveted “Netflix of games”.
200,000 MILLION IN 2023
According to data from the specialized portal Newzoo, in the world there are currently 2,700 million “gamers” or video game fans, that this 2020 will spend 160,000 million dollars in the sector and, in 2023, the unimaginable figure just a few years ago of 200,000 millions.
The growth rate of this industry is also one of the highest in both the entertainment and technology fields, and revolves around 9% per year.
Google’s bet in this field, arrived last year, is Stadia, a subscription service for streaming that makes it no longer necessary to have a console to play, but a good and powerful internet connection is enough to be able to play to any game from any device, be it computer, mobile or television.
The objective of the Mountain View (California, USA) firm is to completely eliminate the traditional barriers of the world of videogames, both physical (discs) and digital (download times), and to bring this sector even closer to its video platform , YouTube, which has already established itself in recent years as a reference portal for players.
STADIA’S COLD WELCOME
Despite the innovative nature of the proposal and the great media hype that was organized around its presentation, after almost a year in the market, its reception has been rather cold, with little success among “gamers”, who criticize, among other things, the limitedness of its game catalog.
To try to overcome this issue, the company that Sundar Pichai runs acquired the promising Canadian developer Typhoon Studios, founded in 2017 and creator of “Journey to the Savage Planet”, multiplatform and critical success.
Like Google, another of the titans of the Silicon Valley, Apple, does not want to be left without its piece of the cake, even less so since the management headed by Tim Cook decided to redirect the company’s course in 2019 to focus on services instead of its traditional focus on hardware.
Thus, the Cupertino (California, USA) firm launched Apple Arcade, a platform under subscription that gives access to more than 100 electronic games available in the App Store so that gamers can access the complete portfolio of video games from the company without having to pay for each title they want to try.
A KEY BUSINESS FOR APPLE
Apple’s service includes products from developers such as Konami, Finji, Giant Squid, Klei Entertainment, Cartoon Network, Sega and Lego, as well as creations by Will Wright, inventor of SimCity, and is available for iPhone, iPad, Mac computers and Apple TV.
Last year, sales of video games and other entertainment products made through applications downloaded from Apple’s App Store reached $ 61 billion, and represent one of the largest sources of income for the company, as well as one of the fastest growing.
If the SIlicon Valley firms were already going all out in the field of video games before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the increase in entertainment consumption derived from it has further accelerated their plans, and it seems clear that games are called to play a major role in the future of the sector.
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