Games are the most successful creative industry in the UK, bigger than TV, film and music. How often have you heard this statement to justify us as a sector?
We all know and feel how the UK mainstream media, especially print, likes to portray us. Whether it’s The Sun declaring “Mum’s Guilt – I found my son in a trance at 2am hooked on his games console… and I felt it was my fault for buying it” or The Mirror’s “Mum bans son, 12, from adult game – but husband’s decision put marriage at risk.” Even The Guardian, who is in my opinion the gold standard of games journalism, doesn’t feature games significantly on its culture page. When I say “significantly,” I mean “if at all.”
But we don’t really need mainstream media, do we? We have our own media channels as well as YouTube, Twitch and Discord, our global revenues are predicted to be $339.95 billion by 2027 (Mordor Intelligence), games are predicted to be played by 3.32 billion players by 2024 (Statista), the average gamer is 34 years old, owns a house, and has children (ESA). 36 years is the average age of a game’s purchaser (Digital Australia) and 67% of parents play video games with their children at least once a week (ESA).
