Week 15: An introduction to the Game industry

Games industry first entered the consumer market in the early 1970s with the release of arcade games including Pong and Space Invaders. In the last 25 years the games industry has grown significantly in size and technologies from these exciting but humble beginnings.

The games industry is now as immense as the film industry, meeting it in revenue terms and continues to experience rapid growth in the console, mobile phone and online games sectors. It is predicted that this growth will continue throughout all facets of the 3D animation and computer generated industries, although it is the games sector where the largest growth is forecast. The global games industry currently outsells the film industry and growth is expected to be maintained at a rate of 20% for at least the next 3 years. (2005, PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report 2005-2009).