Several friends enjoy playing "Rock Band" together at a party.
By William Moore
Despite a dwindling economy, at least one industry has found itself recession-resistant: video games.
Over the past 10 years, the video game industry has been one of the fastest growing forms of entertainment media. According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007-2011” report, the video game industry will continue to see a 9.1 percent increase per year through 2011.
Game retailer GameStop, which specializes in new and used video games, has announced sales of $3.5 billion for the year to Jan. 31, 2009, reported Gamasutra, an online video game news site. A theory suggests that the industry has seen such growth in spite of the failing economy due to the shifting of many households to video games as the choice for family entertainment. An employee who would not give his full name at the Target shopping center GameStop in Athens, GA declined to comment on the story due to company policy.
Assisted in part by the used-game market offered by companies such as GameStop, many households are turning to video games for their family entertainment. Rather than spend as much as $80 to $100 to take a family of four out to dinner and a movie for one night of fun, a single $60 video game can provide a month or more of entertainment.
Andy Richardson, a father of two who was shopping at GameStop with his son commented that the economy has not affected the amount of video games his family purchased in the past year.
“We have probably played more in the last year,” he said. “The economy has not caused us to buy fewer games, and we still purchase and play on a fairly regular basis.”
Other people take advantage of the trade-ins and used games offered by companies such as GameStop. Army Capt. Randall Jackson, another GameStop customer who was purchasing a second copy of a game his daughter accidentally damaged alongside two other first-person shooter games said he almost always buys used games and will trade in his old games towards newer ones.
“If a particular title catches my interest, I might buy it new when it is released,” Jackson said, “Otherwise I always buy my games used.” Jackson said that the number of games he buys has not reduced due to the economy.
The video game industry has also found success in recent years thanks to the new trend of family-friendly party games. These games — such as “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero” — in which players wield plastic instruments to simulate the real thing, and the Nintendo Wii, which lets players control their characters through a gesture-mimicking remote — are bringing families together and getting many parents interested in video games for the first time.
“My mom and stepdad recently got a Wii for my sister back home,” said Tyler Baugh, a 22-year-old marketing major from Cartersville. “They like playing together, but my stepdad told me he really enjoys bowling in the game “Wii Sports.” He comes home from work and plays it by himself before everyone else gets home. He plays it so much he beat me really badly at it the last time I went home.”
--Edited by Chelsea Cook
Interesting story, but it doesn't feel local enough, with all the contextual information coming from secondary sources. The people who buy and play games are good sources, but they're only one kind of source. If you can't get comment from one employee at one store, try a different store or a different chain, and/or call up the corporate spokespeople yourself.
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