Considered by some back in the early 70s as a merely a hobby now has grown full circle into a complete overwhelming economic market in itself. The entertainment software association (ESA) released a report that in 2009 that the annual revenues for the US software industry have grown dramatically to $144.3 billion in 2009. Yes, you read that right. Back in 1971 Atari originally released Pong which basically opened the floodgates. Some may recall games such as Street Fighter; Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Pole Position, Super Mario Brothers, Defender among others that emerged. That success led to the rise of console units as the Xbox, Nintendo 64, and the Wii to name a few. Apparently in 2009 (per the same report) the average annual compensation per employee in the software industry was nearly $90,000. How cool would that be to work making video games AND get paid to do that?
Now the latest wave has evolved into MMORGs (massive multiplayer online roleplaying game) which includes games such as Final Fantasy, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft and even the upcoming Star Wars to name a few. Earlier this month Blizzard entertainment (who makes World Of Warcraft) announced that its game had reached over 12 million subscribers worldwide. According to an article on consumerelectronics.net there was some interesting numbers. Sixty percent of the video gamers were male while forty percent were female. Over half of the adults play video games and four out of five young adults play. So are we as a society addicted or do we simply now just have too much time on our hands?
