An Overview of the Digital or Video Gaming Industry A Walk Down the History Lane Not only the words games and gaming are self-explanatory, the practice of using games both as a source of entertainment as well as learning is almost inherent to humans and the practice dates back to ancient civilizations as old as 3200 BC.
Although, games have been used for gambling and learning strategies of war and concepts of ruling for thousands of years, the use of video games as a source of entertainment as well as learning is much more recent and has evolved with the evolution of personal computers.The onset of computer and digital era saw the usage of video games as more accessible and lead to the rise of gaming industries in late seventies and early eighties. While the market for console gaming industry was already blooming in the sissies, educators, technologist, and investors saw an opportunity for a new market; an opportunity of using video games not only as a source of entertainment, but also as a powerful medium of education and learning.With all the variables in place, the market saw the arrival of Edutainment and Serious Games industry that flourished for more than a decade before giving in due to arrest dynamics. While the gaming industry as a whole has flourished and has reported a revenue of more than $80 billion as revenue in 2014 (nonzero games market research, 2014), the edutainment industry is yet to see its past days of glory when it was more than a billion dollar industry in late nineties (Schuler, C. 2012).
The Know-wows of Digital Gaming Business In spite of being continuously questioned and criticized because of the business models, practices, and customer acquisition and profit making strategies, video gaming industry has blossomed since its inception and its revenue, which was once ore than one billion dollar in early sissies, is expected to grow past the $100 billion mark by 201 5 (Gardner, 2013).Based on the four pillars of entertainment, creativity, technology, and marketing, video gaming industry has been successful in providing entertainment through the use creative and interactive media and cutting edge technologies on the best available platforms. The exponential rise in the hand held devices has also tremendously helped the gaming industry to break the barrier of their target audience, which was once considered to be teenagers and children.With mutinous innovation and use of creative business models such as Fermium model, where the games are available to download and play for free and the revenue is generated through in-game spending, game developers have been successful in reaching the audience that once was never expected to be reachable for this industry. Although, the current video gaming industry is more focused on the entertainment and leisure aspects of gaming, the opportunity for exploring the utility of games as educational and learning tools still lies under-explored.
Understanding business purpose and applying stakeholder theory The Purpose and the Potential ofDigital Gaming While the growth and advancement of technology has often been described as one of main contributors of development of economy and businesses, it is also be seen as one of the main reasons of the substantial changes in the behavior and advancement of the societies. The rise of the social media, smart devices, and instant availability of data and information have transformed not only the way of thinking of the society, but also their social behavior and activities. Communication, entertainment, and leisure activities have been highly digitized and now it is possible to achieve almost real time experiences in a virtual world.This complete transformation of communication and media technologies along with the high accessibility of personal computers and smart devices over the last decade have lead to a rise of a multimillion digital gaming industry with a diverse range of potential and audiences across different geographies. Although, the gaming industry is currently marching forward on the two legs of innovation and technology and having the major purpose as leisure activities and entertainment, there has been a substantial growth in the research to broaden the prospects and understanding of games not only as a tool forEducation and Learning, but also as a potential platform for Empowerment, and Social Inclusion of Groups at Risk of Social and Economic exclusion (Stewart J, & Missouri G, 2013). Having already seen a rise and fall of the edutainment era and having branded the lack of market demand and lack of talent to meet the expectations as the major culprits, today's game developers tend to avoid the word education while investing and creating products of substantial values.
In reality, it was massive consolidation combined with other key contextual forces such as the rise of mass-market retailers and accompanying downward pricing pressures that deed to the industry demise" (Carry Schuler, 2012). But, with the current wide scale success of both educational and non-educational APS and games on social media as well as on smart devices it is very evident that current technology has paved a way for uncovering the potential of games to be used over wide scale with purposes that can not only end up as entertaining but also bringing about a social change in the society.Application of Stakeholders Theory and Value Generation Not only the digital gaming industry is one of the more rapidly growing industry in the economy (Carnations P. & Wilson L. 2012), it has also matured enough in few countries to have a sizable affect over the employment generation, technical advancements, stakeholders involving shareholders and non-shareholders of the organization, and consumers that in some cases account for more than 75% families of a country (Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry, 2011).
N- spite of having huge potential for contributing towards social and educational causes, many organizations in gaming industry have often ended up receiving criticism on their business acquisition strategies and management practices, retirement of employees, and advertising practices, which has lead to a doubt towards the long term purpose of those organizations and gaming industry as a whole.Although, the industry as a whole is highly dynamic and realization of the above mentioned potential rests on the availability of investors, talent, technology, and consumer behavior, but with a fast growing and diversifying audience there are signs that technologists and investors will invest more towards realizing the capabilities of diversified application of games in the day to day non-leisure activities.To further purport the idea of using games in non-leisure activities people like Clark Aldrich have worked extensively to understand the potential of games in a much more diverse market and have advocated the potential of games when it comes to Education and Learning. "When it comes to education and training, computer games change everything. Generations of game creators have raised the bar on engagement, and opened the door to new types of material that can be formally learned.
" Clark Aldrich (Author, Learning by Doing: A Comprehensive Guide to Simulations, Computer Games, and Pedagogy in e-Learning and Other EducationalExperiences) Having understood the basics of the gaming industry one can argue that the stakeholders of a digital gaming organizations are not only the employees, consumers, shareholders, and technical researchers, but also the consumers who are still untapped by the gaming industry. Hence, to take the understanding a step further, one can conclude that given the huge success of games throughout civilizations, it cannot be denied that games have the potential of defining the social behavior of a society. Hence, it can be argued that the biggest stakeholders in the gaming industry are the consumers and the society as a whole.To conclude, for the gaming industry to improve their scorecard as per the yardstick of the stakeholders theory, the technologists, developers, and investors should not only focus on the short term growth and revenue generation but also venture out and invest more in other possibilities and markets that can be served by using games as a tool and platform to serve education and other social needs.
