The Gaming Industry—No Recession Here with a 22 by 22

I’ve blogged on the gaming industry before noting how it has surpassed the movie industry in revenue and most other industries in terms of technological developments. Now, in the midst of the worst economic environment since the Great Depression, comes the news that the gaming industry grew by 22% last year. According to the Entertainment Software Association the gaming industry topped $22B in sales in 2008 which represents a 22% increase over the year before. (Hence, the 22 x 22 in the title). Over 267M games were sold in 2007 across all platforms.
According to Ars Technica the gaming industry will hit $68B by 2012.

The early days of virtual instrumentation came with the advent of the personal computer. In the 1980’s which had its share of recessions and stock market drops, there was no recession in the PC-based software segment. The emerging gaming world at the time brought forth games such as Pacman, DonkeyKong, and others. Because of this market force, hardware and software vendors found it possible to continually expand and upgrade their systems to meet the demand for more computing power and usability. Virtual instrumentation applications caught a free ride on the back of gamers by using the personal computer hardware and software for measurement and automation applications.

Best regards,
Hall T.