Callum Pickett,

The nature of the industry  In the early days of the industry, from arcades to the SNES, games didn't have much storage space, so companies had to go to massive lengths to teach the player, challenge them, and give them a game that lasted. The triumphs of this period were games that had real difficulty and taught the player as they went through, like the first Castlevania and the Mega Man series. By the time the SNES and the PlayStation came around, there was suddenly a lot of free space available. Most developers used this to render things in first generation 3d, or stuff their games with full-motion-videos (FMV’s). The first Resident Evil games are the perfect example. On the computer, titles such as Deus Ex and Half Life were revolutionizing storytelling at about the same time that the PlayStation 2 came out, and the PS2 also had some great triumphs in story, such as the first God of War. There was also the birth of online on the Xbox, and it’s killer app Halo has affected every shooter that came after. Nintendo didn’t really do much in this generation that affected gaming as an industry, but it still had several great games such as the Metroid Prime trilogy and Luigi’s Mansion. In the current generation, online and cloud gaming has really taken off, with services like Steam raking in cash and independent games like Minecraft becoming sensational.

Products Predictably, the main products (possibly the only products) the games industry creates are games. Games are however separated by the console they are on, their genre, and their producers. Easily the most popular genre at the moment is the first person shooter, with third game in Call of Duty’s Modern Warfare miniseries becoming the best selling product in entertainment history.

Other industries  Obviously, the primary thing produced by games companies are games. However, as games have grown as a medium, there have be numerous forays into other products. During the NES era, there were Saturday-morning action cartoons for Mario, the Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, and several other franchises. Toys and merchandise have existed for as long as the characters themselves. Since Halo released novels on its launch day, big franchises have set up expanded universes through novels, comics, viral campaigns, and even movies. The most successful of these is hard to point down, but it would probably be the Halo expanded universe, which was one of the first to be made. There have been lots of films based on games, but none of them are any good. Soundtracks have been released on CD’s and digitally, and in my opinion gaming soundtracks are some of the best I've ever heard. The limited editions of some big- name titles usually have an art book or tie-in comic included. Marketing and animation work with the games companies quite often, as they are the ones behind the trailers and hype. Props, statues and figurines have also become popular collectors items.

Finances  Globally, the industry was worth about 65 BILLION US dollars in June 2011, and it is on e of the fastest growing industries out there. I was unable to get more recent data on Europe, but in 2007 the games industry there was worth 17.9 billion USD. I'm not sure how big Europe is, but one of its biggest points is the UK, which was worth 2.88 billion pounds in 2010.

Employment  Due to how big the gaming industry has become, many new jobs have been created. In 2010, 30,000 people were employed by the games industry and game retailers in the UK alone. Unfortunately, I was unable to get global and European stats. I did, however, find stats for specific companies. Nintendo of America had over 1200 people employed by the end of November 2011, and Square Enix, one of the biggest companies in the east, had only 3,297 employees in March I personally expected these companies to be much larger.

Salary  In 2010, despite pay falling, game industries were still able to give solid pay. Testers, despite having the lowest pay in the industry, still earned on average $37,905. Programmers are one of the best paid, earning $80,32. Artists and animators earned $71,07. Game designers got $61,859, while design leads got that plus an extra $80o0. Producers got $75,082. Composers and audio got $82,085

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Bibliography  The Escapist  Fahey, M. (2010). How Much Money Can You Make In The Video Game Industry?. Available: make-in-the-video-game-industry. Last accessed 31st Jan  Anonymous. (2010). How many people are employed by Nintendo of America?. Available: employed-by-nintendo-of-america. Last accessed 2nd Feb  Square Enix. (2011). Coporate Profile. Available: Last accessed 2nd Feb 2012.