Video Games - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 30

Although hardcore is usually by industry research referred to the very
hardest of the hardcore, which only represents 10-20 per cent of the total
gaming market (DFC Intelligence 2010), this defi nition does not take into
account the bandwagon ef ect hardcore gamers have on the remaining mar-
ket. As indicated by the previous top ten list of the highest-grossing games,
most can be considered “hardcore”—particularly the violently gory and
technologically complex genre of FPS titles, such as Call of Duty: Modern
Warfare 2 , which in two months generated US$1 billion in sales (BBC News
2010). This implicates a dif erent and signifi cantly broader defi nition of the
hardcore gamer subculture than merely the 10 per cent of the gamer popu-
lation that top the sales statistics charts.
THE INFINITE EXPANSION NARRATIVE EXPLICATED
Posited, in a sense, against this notion of the video game industry and
markets as an integrated type of commercial subculture is what this study
calls the infi nite expansion narrative . This is a fundamental belief that
the video game medium, industry and market, are expanding from their
humble 1970s garage origins to a global mass-entertainment multibillion-
euro industry. A large share of the video game industry and academia
would subscribe to this view. “Why shouldn't video games become part
of majority culture considering the endless amount of joy it already gen-
erates today?”, ask the “converts”, i.e. gamers. The argument is further
strengthened when considering the impressive historical track record of
the video game industry. This is indeed a belief fundamentally shared
by this study in terms of the communicational power of the video game
medium. In terms of creative and expressive power, the video game
medium holds a potential probably greater than that of television and
cinema. However, on a realpolitik industry level there are many obstacles
on the path between the current state and a blissful mass-cultural future.
One obstacle is the subcultural status of the video game industry and
markets. This status of the industry in relation to the infi nite expansion
narrative will be analysed next from the following perspectives: business/
industry/economy, marketing/communication, game medium, technol-
ogy, political/societal dimension and, fi nally, a personal dimension.
Business/Industry/Economy—Market Growth
The industry is (as any market economy) in need of never-ending expansion
and specialization—a tenet that has arguably and statistically been true for
several decades of industry expansion. However, as has been questioned
earlier: how long can this continue? The expansion culmination has pos-
sibly already occurred and the question is whether the industry is prepared
to take on the challenge of reinventing itself and continuing the expansion.