Gaming companies are reaching incredible milestones this year far beyond revenue expectations set for the industry. With this in mind, it’s safe to assume that gaming is becoming a bigger entity central to the growth of tech and it will only continue to expand.
Today, MaC Venture Capital — an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in growing tech companies — released a report as part of their “Culture Shifts: The State of Technology and Culture” series identifying societal and behavioral trends that influence global pop culture.
Gaming Takeover outlines how the gaming industry is shifting the world’s practices as well as the growth opportunities it offers for innovation and investment in the near future.
The report shares how the billion-dollar video game industry merges both the physical and digital worlds, pulling cultural references from every sector including education, music, movies, TV, sports, medicine, national defense, construction, and politics.
“What started in the early 1970s as a way to bounce an electronic ball between two paddles on your home television screen has morphed into a massive industry that is influencing and shaping culture and business on a global scale,” the report states.
According to the report, 2.7 billion gamers — 32 percent of the world’s population — will spend $160 million on games in 2020, a number that is expected to exceed $200 billion by 2023.
This exponential growth speaks volumes to the gaming industry’s potential to dominate the entertainment world in the years ahead, but some still underestimate its capabilities to impact the way the world lives and works.
A large contributor to this growth is the evolution of technology that, after years of refinement, is now perfectly positioned to launch the gaming cultural takeover.
Furthermore, the unprecedented times brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have presented a unique opportunity that’s allowing tech and entertainment to bring us closer together than ever before.
“We are living in unique cultural times,” MaC’s report shares. “We seem to be at record levels of economic and political polarization and COVID-19 has amplified the demand for virtual entertainment and interactivity.”
At this time, many companies are exploring their options to see how gaming can help grow their businesses. In a world where technology is the new leader, brands can now make themselves more adaptive, interactive, and engaging thanks to the barriers the gaming industry is breaking.
In regards to this, MaC Venture Capital is looking for companies that take advantage of opportunities that push the culture forward like creating more representation and blurring the lines between gaming and other sectors of the world.
MaC’s areas of focus include game creators, improving traditional content, formats, distribution, and engagement as well as diversity in the industry and widening access for new audiences around the world.
“We have the privilege of working with amazing companies reshaping culture and business through the world of gaming,” the firm said. “We feel the first 50 years of gaming has led us to this amazing inflection point where we have been given a glimpse of the world to come. But we truly feel we are just at the end of the beginning and that with the hindsight of another 50 years these transformations will seem quaint.”
MaC reveals that while there is much work to be done to ensure the future of the gaming industry aligns with where the world wants to head to next, there’s outstanding evidence that suggests its influence is spreading rapidly.
The firm is both hopeful and excited to play a role in securing that future for us all.
To read more about MaC’s recent report, click here.
