The document discusses the history and evolution of the video game industry from the 1990s to present day. It describes how gaming transitioned from arcades and home consoles to include handheld, mobile, and online/internet-based gaming. The rise of digital distribution platforms like Steam increased online multiplayer gaming and microtransactions. The future of gaming is focused on continued growth of online/mobile gaming as internet access expands globally.

2. THE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-
Gdl5tj2Hs

3. GAMING INDUSTRY PRIOR TO THE INTERNET
The 1990s were a decade of marked innovation in video gaming.
It was a decade of transition from raster graphics to 3D graphics and gave rise to
several genres of video games including first-person shooter, real-time
strategy, and MMO.
Handheld gaming began to become more popular throughout the decade, thanks
in part to the release of the Game Boy in 1989.
Arcade games experienced a resurgence in the early-to-mid-1990s, followed by a
decline in the late 1990s as home consoles became more common.
Mobile phones began becoming video gaming platforms when Nokia installed
Snake onto its line of mobile phones in 1997 . As the game gained popularity,
every major phone brand offered "time killer games" that could be played in
very short moments such as waiting for a bus.
Mobile phone games early on were limited by the modest size of the phone
screens that were all monochrome and the very limited amount of memory
and processing power on phones, as well as the drain on the battery

4. HOW THE INTERNET HAS CHANGED GAMING
The internet has changed gaming in 10 main ways:
 Online FAQs – players can ask questions and share answers quickly. It can give clues on how
to complete games so players don’t get stuck and lose interest.
 Microtransactions – small purchases online to allow further gaming/upgraded gaming.
 Piracy Explosion – internet allows pirated games to be shared between an unlimited amount of
people.
 Gaming News – internet has enabled gaming news to be constantly published; no longer have
to wait for monthly releases of news in magazines.
 Mod Communities – players who post videos of them gaming have becom very popular and
have also popularised certain games.
 Patching – problems in games are much easier to fix. However some argue that this has made
game developers lazy as its not as serious if bugs slip through.
 Multiplayer
 Fan Communities - fan communities spread the word about anticipated games and can be
polled by developers looking for fan reaction to various things during game development.
 Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
 Persistent World Games -
 Online Multiplayer – online games make it more fun and interactive, can play with friends and
strangers.

5. THE INDUSTRY NOW…
The industry’s biggest consumer market revenue streams in 2014 were
Digital Console and PC (£1,048m, +18%, split between £573m for
consoles and £475m for PC), Boxed Software (£935m, -6%), Consoles
hardware (£915m, +46%, thanks to strong PS4 and Xbox One sales) and
Mobile gaming (£548m, +21%)
The digital sales of games (£1.5bn) are bigger than the combined digital
sales of video and music (£1.3bn)
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20Games%20Industry
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6. This shows that since the
proliferation of the internet, gaming
on PCs has become more popular,
and even overtook console gaming
in 2010.
EXTRA STATISTICS
This shows that since the
proliferation of the internet, gaming
as a whole has been increasing
greatly due to the online gaming
input.

7. STEAM
- Steam is a multi-player platform developed by Valve Corporation
- Used to distribute games and related media online.
- Provides the user with installation and automatic management of software across
multiple computers
- Entails community features: friends lists/groups, in-game voice and chat functionality
- As of September 2015, over 6,400 games are available through Steam
- Steam has had as many as 12.5 million concurrent users as of November 2015
- it was estimated by Screen Digest that 75% of games bought online are downloaded
through Steam in October 2013
- 2015, users purchased titles through Steam or through Steam keys from third-party
vendors totalling around $3.5 billion representing 15% of the global PC game sales for
the year
- In 2005, third-party games began to appear on Steam; Valve announced that Steam had
become profitable, and although digital distribution could not yet match retail, profit
margins for Valve and developers were far larger on Steam.
- Large developer-publishers, including id Software, Eidos Interactive and Capcom, began
distributing their games on Steam in 2007.
- By May that year, 13 million accounts had been created on the service, and 150 games
were for sale on the platform.

8. STEAM…
This shows that
Steam is a growing
industry as the users
are still increasing.
It’s clear that
accessing games
online has become
much more popular
in recent years as
there are more active
users. This could
cause an issue for
companies selling
disks and cartridges.

9. BENEFITS
Audience
• Allows people to connect
internationally for all sorts of games.
• Online games enable more players,
so the game is more fun and
interactive.
• Prime social outlet.
• Easy to access game tips and tricks
from others.
• Cheaper to download games.
• No need to spend money on new
games as they can simply upgrade
them.
• Tutorials are now available to help
the audience get through games.
• Can build a career from playing the
games.
Industry
• Gaming companies found seemingly
limitless ways to entice them to buy
things – enhances experience.
• Digital development enables ‘patching’
so fixing problems is quick and
effective.
• Can provide upgrades rather than
spending money on producing new
disks.
• Can restrict some things on the game
to encourage players to purchase
things – profits.
• Internet provides 24/7 coverage of the
industry
• Easy, free promotion via gamers who
post about the games. Some have
millions of follows so reach a massive
audience.
• Technological convergence enables
games to be accessed on a range of
applications

10. DISADVANTAGES
Audience
• Purchasing the hardware and
software can be very expensive
• Has been said that games have
a negative effect on the health
of players, as its not active and
is played for hours.
• Due to interactive nature of
video games players are more
vulnerable to the influence of
others
Industry
• Physical games more expensive,
audience less likely to buy it as
they are usually available to
download online
• The violent nature of some games
has led to bad publicity, as some
blame the games influence for
crimes - could effect sales

11. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR GAMING?
As the internet becomes a more prominent part of people’s lives, gaming
online will continue to grow meaning that (as seen on the graph on the
left) the use of consoles and handhelds will continue to drop due to the
growth in online and mobile gaming which has already begun to happen
(graph on the right).

12.  The Long Tail Theory shows how physical
sales have lessened as more games are
introduced because these are available
online for download. The internet enables
the availability of more titles, so
consumers often go online for more
variety. Therefore, there will be less
physical sales, and more sales on digital
distributors such as Steam.