Unit 5 The Internet
Tracks 0 6 -0 8
Track 07
Interviewer: Welcome to the program m e, Bob Lam ont. Now you're going to ta lk to us about
the online gaming industry. We’ve had many listeners, especially parents of young
children, em ail questions about the futu re of the gaming industry and how it’s going
to develop.
Bob Lamont: Well, hopefully I'll be able to answ er some of th e ir questions. Firstly, it’s im portant
to rem em ber that this is an industry that develops incredibly rapidly and so it’s
d iffic u lt to make definite predictions. So, in te rm s of significant developm ents that
people w orking in the industry are preparing for, the m ost interesting is the fact
that the age group of gam ers (people who play online and video games) w ill change
dram atically. We predict that by 2020 the average age range w ill have shifted
from teenagers to the over 50s. This is because in the future young people w ill be
using new form s of e ntertainm ent but those who are young now are more likely
to continue using the fo rm s of en te rta in m e n t they are already used to in la te r life.
By 2020 this age group w ill have been playing the same type of game fo r half th e ir
lives and are unlikely to change.
The types of games w ill progress too from the platform -based games we have
now, w hich we expect people to be using u n til 2015, to 3D games tow ards the
end of the decade. However, before everyone is using 3D games there w ill be a
period when networked games w ill become the dom inant form at. This is m ostly
to do w ith the technology available and the fact that gam ing companies w on’t have
invested enough money to make 3D cheap enough fo r the mass m arket u n til at
least 2018. Now, as you w ould expect, the gam ing m arket w ill spread so that by
2020 companies w ill have created a w orldw ide m arketing strategy fo r every game,
therefore reducing the need to create new games fo r d ifferent regional m arkets.
This is d ifferent from today where we see that the online gaming industry is much
more focused on the region of Asia and this is likely to continue fo r a few more
years.
One final point to mention here is the com petition from other form s of
entertainm ent. Over the next decade very few form s of entertainm ent w ill be able
to compete with the gaming industry. However, there is ta lk of movies becoming
interactive in the future. This is a real threat. Tech companies w ill have developed the
necessary technology fo r interactive movies by 2015 and this may attract gam ers who
like character-based games in large numbers.
