It’s one of the Bay Area’s biggest industries and also one of the fastest-growing – and it’s all about playing games.
While once dominated by individual sales at stores like Game Stop, games are now coming to us on our mobile devices, television sets and even as Netflix-like subscriptions.
The good news: Besides lots of choices for lots of gamers, gaming also means new job creation, especially if you are a gamer yourself.
The gaming industry clocked in just above a billion dollars this year. Gaming enthusiasts flocked to the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco this week, checking out the latest the industry had to offer.
Andrew Fear of Nvidia, who has been gaming since he was eight years old, said that as gamers grow old, they get more platforms, more options and more opportunities for jobs, whether it be in game designing or advertising and marketing.
While the biggest game sellers include longtime gaming giants like Microsoft , Electronic Arts and Sony, other companies like Facebook and Apple are selling a ton of games these days, thanks to the rise in apps and mobile devices.
“The definition of a gamer is really expanding,” said Julie Uhrman, CEO of Ouya.”We all play games, whether it’s on the tablet or a phone or in the living room. We are just going to see most companies grow to support all the gamers.”
