Status of the Gaming Industry
by Bill Gilson

Every January, the President of the United States makes a State of the Union address, bragging how good our nation is compared to 30 years ago, and expressing his opinions on, well, the state of the union. In this editorial, I will address the state of the gaming industry.

I’m sure this is pretty obvious to most people. The state of the gaming industry is good, and it’s never been better. . Even in the last six months, I’ve seen the gaming industry grow. Game developers are no longer a group of a few guys who attempt to make half-decent games after work. It is a multi-million dollar business, and us gamers are making a whole lot of people rich.

I’m not trying to suggest that everyone should stop playing games and instead beat their computers with hammers, far from it. I’m just want everyone to realize that when they go out to the store and buy the hot new game, then play it for a week and then throw it in the attic, you pretty much wasted your money. I’m not saying this is what all games are like, and yes, this is why there are demos and reviews out there. Just realize that the gaming industry is some little neglected branch of computing; it is an industry where many people are getting rich.

I believe that the gaming industry is booming. Gaming web sites pop up every day; from the Geocities site done by an amateur webmaster, or a Starcraft.org or Planet Half-Life done by seemingly experts, who more often than not get no or little compensation. This is the one are which you can get free hosting for even a domain name (with unlimited works, and the ususl server capabilities) for as little as a button link to your host on your main page in return. A plethora of gaming magazines populate the newsstands today, and there are several places out on the web where one can play against other die-hard gamers. Though it is booming now, it will not stay like that. People will get tired of gaming, and some new craze will hit the market for the adolescent-twentysomething generation.

In a sense the gaming industry at the present time is like fresh bread. We must utilize it and enjoy it now while it’s fulfilling, because tomorrow it could be stale.

Copyright Brian Gilson 1999. All rights reserved. Please send all comments, good, bad, or anything . Thank you for reading.