Source Analysis: Growth in the Gaming Industry
Alex Henry
Lit 1102
Kat Gray
Section 25
Growth in the Gaming Industry
The gaming industry has come a long way since the 20th century. In this day and age, they are becoming a large contributor not only the U.S economy, but globally as well, producing an estimated $67 billion in 2012. Although this growth is compiled from all areas of gaming, the largest contributor of the mass is found in PC gaming. Through the years, PC gaming has had a very gradual and steady growth due to online stores and gaming stations such as Steam, Glyph, and Battle.net.
From what the author says, PC gaming plays the largest role in the gaming industry as sales continuously grow. Through the years however, we are seeing a large conversion from console gaming to PC gaming, and possibly we will see a change from PC gaming to mobile gaming.
In the article I found that reported on the industry’s growth, the author quoted a recent study done in 2012 that the gaming industry is predicted to grow to an astounding $82 billion by 2017. We can only estimate that as the years go on, online gaming will become one of, if not the greatest contributors to the global economy. This is only an estimation based upon the authors article, but it is still reasonable to believe so due to his many references to studies of the recent trends. He lists of many links to graphs and studies such as the “Worldwide Market Forecast”.
Along with his facts, he does give a background to his own history as a gaming researcher for 20 years. He also refrains from using any biased information, as a journalist he stays neutral in his report, stating his opinion of the industry as a whole and not claiming one piece is claiming all the glory while others aren’t. Although he reveals that PC gaming is making up the biggest revenue, he does not fail to refer to the growth in the mobile gaming branch or even console gaming.
Reading through the article, I saw that used a lot of statistics given by researchers in the industry, thus giving me a feel of an ethical appeal. As I have said above, the claim was that the gaming industry would gross a $20 billion increase in revenue in 5 years, and to support this claim, he gave out statistics, references, and facts that backed up his claim and would give his readers an insight in just how the industry would grow. Although the prediction is $82 billion 2017, I personally believe it could be a lot more.
Is this source credible? As far as information goes, there was a lot that could have been added. The article is rather short, but what is there is well supported and has the links and sites to back it up. The author himself supplies his own background to support his claims and his reports. In the long run however, the source is not the best if you want to have a more detailed report of the gaming industry.
The information is a bit stale, however, the gaming industry has changed quite a lot since 2012, which is why we could all say that this prediction is an under sale for what we may truly see. If we’ve learned one thing from the economy recently it’s this. You can’t rely on predictions. Fluctuations are all too common in the economy as a whole. Whether or not the change in the revenue will be a large change or a small one, one fact remains. Gaming will always have a big role inside the global economy.
