Traditional Economics

For slightly less than $8000, one can purchase from DFC Intelligence, a respected “strategic market research and consulting firm focused on interactive entertainment and the emerging video game”, several reports such as China Game Market and Game Industry Overview as well as updates for one year. The subscription fee alone says that video games or entertainment soft ware, as the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) calls it, is big business. DFC estimated that from 1996 to 2005, the US video game industry doubled to $7 billion. And contrary to perception, US is not the largest video game market. It's Asia, whose market is predicted to reach $23 billion by 2009 in a recent Computerworld Singapore article. Game economics viewed from a different perspective shows that in its first 24 hours of retail sales, Microsoft ’s “Halo 2” had sales of $125 million. And the numbers are not only monetary: Wikipedia recently listed 189 web pages of game publishers & developers. The game economy isn't just big, it's also profitable. In 2005, Electronic Arts had worldwide revenues of $3.1 billion, roughly $500,000 for each of its 6500 employees. Similarly, Sony Computer Entertainment has a 2005 market capitalization of ¥1.933 billion on revenues of more than ¥737.9 billion. Many schools and colleges offer programs in video game design, character animation and technical direction including some established and respected universities as well as upstarts which cater specifically to the game industry. The schools making these offerings appear to be about evenly divided between technical and art schools, but include some surprises. For example, the Georgia Institute of Technology has a PhD program in digital media and in 1998 Carnegie Mellon University established its Entertainment Technology Centre, which offers advanced degrees in entertainment technology through courses like 'Building Virtual Worlds' & 'Game Design'. By traditional measures, the game economy is big, growing bigger and definitely here to stay! For more information on IIPM Editorial Article, please click here...,

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Source: IIPM, B&E