Scenario 2: Government rules, Business counterattacks

Over the past 5 years the video gaming industry has changed. Government entities across the world have achieved what would be called fiction in the year 2005: the government enables a change of the business model of the video gaming industry. Lobbying with local government, strong cooperation with commercial companies and edu-games are the key element of the business model nowadays, in the year 2010.

Violence in games, the growing health problem and hackers brings government entities on interfering with the strategy of the gaming industry.

Increasing violence in the society among the youth brings on a research to find out the possible reasons in 2000. Scientific evidence has proven in 2004 that violence in media makes audience insensitive for violence over the time. A dilution occurs between what is allowed and what is not allowed. Government decided to reduce violence in the media. TV stations are not allowed to broadcast violence events before 10.00 pm. In 2005 the game industry is tackled. Violence in game emulating real violence like shooting someone down, knocking down people with a car is not allowed. The problem is that violence does not have a universal definition. In some countries some events are seen as violence where in other countries the same event is seen as normal. This results in different definitions of what is allowed in different countries. For the game industry this is an opportunity. The opportunity is that it still can produce “violence” games and can adjust it according to a country specific regulation. To counterbalance the pressure of the local government the game industry places an entity in each region for lobbying with the government regarding regulations about “violence” in games. Nowadays the game industry is not more a global industry as it was in 2005 but a multinational industry which responses to regional demand.

Almost simultaneously with the appearance of increasing violence in the society the government in developed countries copes with overweight and obesity among the youth. Instead of playing games like hide-and-seek children prefer video gaming. This passive action makes them reluctant to sport. This contributes to overweight and obesity and all its side effects like heart diseases, high blood pressure. Government is forced to undertake action because healthcare is already expensive in 2006 due to the ageing population. A campaign is started which discourages fat food, sweetness and the entertainment industry. The gaming industry plans a counterattack in 2007 which is based on another outcome of government pressure: the edu-game. The game industry changed their business model in 2007 in order to produce games which are meant as an educational manual for taking care of your health. This has been achieved by cooperation with medical institutions and by organizing health care events. The latter one is used for cross-selling. The healthcare is used against the game industry in 2006 and now the game industry uses the healthcare to sell their product.

Another major event for the change of the business model was the fact that governments across the world began a worldwide campaign against hackers and gamers who use emulators and copied games in 2005. Two parties benefited this action. The first party was the government itself because fewer sales of games, DVDs and music CDs meant significantly less tax income. The second party was the gaming industry which saw more revenues. This action was and is still a huge success: the population of hackers have been decreased by 50 percent creating a massive decline in illegal gaming. Of course these governments wanted to see back a favour in return of this effort end 2006. Governments use its power to dictate the type of games that are being developed which is called “Edu-games”. These educational games are manufactured with the idea that the community should benefit from game-consoles by teaching young children in a ‘fun’ way. Research has pointed out that children can learn more from these types of games because of their pleasurable nature.

Game sales go up in 2007 since it’s more difficult to ‘hack’ new consoles and people have to buy original games to play. At first the amount of gamers will decline because of the decrease of ‘cool’ games (the violent games are considered cool amongst teenagers) and because copying becomes more difficult and even dangerous (chance to be arrested) the amount of gamers will decline. To make gaming interesting again and to make sure the government campaign (edu-games) does not fail governments decided to give the green light to commercial company’s to advertise in games during the playing time in 2008. You favourite superhero can now pick-up a can of Coca Cola making it interesting for company’s to explore for marketing purposes and making the games cheaper for the consumers. A part of the price of a game is now paid by company’s who fight for big contracts with the game developers increasing the power of the gaming industry and therefore also the government. After these events the amount of gamers rose again since everybody has been able to afford a console and the games now despite the current state of the economy. The business model has been changed to cope with government power, to cooperate with commercial companies more efficiently and to provide exiting, interesting, semi-non-violence edu-games which fit to the demand of video gamers.