Nvidia won, we all lost

> I have also realized that there is a lot out there in the world besides video games, and getting all in a huff about it isn’t worth my time or energy.

I think more and more people will realize games are a waste of time for them and go on to find other hobbies. As a game developer, it kinda worries me. As a gamer, I can't wait for gaming to be a niche thing again, haha.

"it's just a fad"

Nah. Games will always be around.

The games industry is now bigger than the movies industry. I think you're very wrong about this, as games are engaging in a way other consumption based media simply cannot replicate.

I played video games since I was a teenager. Loved them, was obsessed with them. Then sometime around 40 I just gave up. Not because of life pressure or lack of time but because I just started to find them really boring and unfulfilling. Now I’d much rather watch movies or read. I don’t know if the games changed or I changed.

Fortunately for your business model, there's a constant stream of new people to replace the ones who are aging out. But you have to make sure your product is appealing to them, not just to the same people who bought it last decade.

I get that, I go through periods of falling in and out of them too after having grown up with them. But there is a huge fraction of my age group (and a little older) that have consistently had games as their main "consumption" hobby throughout.

And then there's the age group younger than me, for whom games are not only a hobby but also a "social place to be", I doubt they'll be dropping gaming entirely easily.

Of course they will. People play since before they were people.

I’m an ex-gamer, but I remember games in the 90’s and earlier 00’s being much more respecting of one’s time.

You could still sink a ton of time into it if you wanted do, but you could also crank out a decent amount of fun in 5-15 minutes.

Recently games seem to have been optimized to maximize play time rather than for fun density.

I would strongly disagree. If anything, it's the other way around - a typical 90s game had a fairly steep learning curve. Often no tutorials whatsoever, difficulty could be pretty high from the get go, players were expected to essentially learn through trial and error and failing a lot. Getting familiar enough with the game mechanics to stop losing all the time would often take a while, and could be frustrating while it lasted.

These days, AAA games are optimized for "reduced friction", which in practice usually means dumbing down the mechanics and the overall gameplay to remove everything that might annoy or frustrate the player. I was playing Avowed recently and the sheer amount of convenience features (e.g. the entire rest / fast travel system) was boggling.

What’s the gaming industry look like when you remove mobile gaming from the equation?

I don’t think it’s the time aspect. I think that on average movies and books offer far more insightful commentary on life and tell more interesting stories. That and the video game world is just less engaging than reality. Like in a video game I have to run everywhere and need to be hitting things with a sword constantly to not get bored, while in reality a walk in nature on a trail I’ve walked 100 times before is an enjoyable experience that will leave me physically and mentally in a much better place than sitting on the couch for hours.

"Game industry" is an umbrella term for 100 different things. I can't for the life of me figure out in what sense I and the FIFA devs are part of the same industry. There's no knowledge, or skills, or audience, or marketing strategies, that would transfer from one to the other.

Depends on who you believe, some sources claim mobile gaming is 20% of the market by revenue, others say 50%.

I'm not sure I understand the point you're making. I'm trying to say games aren't becoming niche any time soon. Of course I'm going to use the umbrella term to say that? Yeah there are many sub-segments, arguably many more than say movies, but that only strengthens my argument. It can cater to so many different sort of audiences.

> more and more people will realize games are a waste of time for them and go on to find other hobbies

This is what I'm arguing against, more and more people will realize exactly what sort of games they like and home in on that is a much more likely scenario.

And just in case your point is that games used to be more engaging and fresh, well, Indie games exist. So many games are doing many new things, or fusing existing genres into something fresh. There's a lot more variety to be had in games than most other media.

Yeah it's mostly nostalgia and selection bias speaking. Easy to remember all the flaws of games you have played recently and compare them to the handful of classics you can remember from the 90s.

There was so so so much trial and error in games in the 90s, with some you basically had to press different inputs to even figure out what does what. No QoL features, really poor save systems that forced you to play the same section over and over, terrible voice acting, crappy B-movie plotlines (this hasn't changed that much tbf but there are some amazingly written games too at least to somewhat counterbalance that) etc.

Mind you, I'm not saying the current state of affairs is better. On QoL features the pendulum swung too much in the other direction IMO to the point where it's hard to suspend disbelief sometimes.