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Thursday, January 17, 2008

IS GAMING MAINSTREAM?

STEVE COLE REPORTS: Halo 3 has sold more copies (4.1 million) than Hannah Montana (2.6 million). By that measure, games are more popular than music, but there are many factors. Everybody likes music and has at least a CD or two in their home; very few people (less than 2%) play hard-core games (wargames, RPGs, cards, clicks). A larger percentage have played stuff like Monopoly, which aren't really "games" in the sense that the adventure game industry sees games. Then compare those computer game sales to wargames, where 10,000 units sold is an incredible once-in-a-lifetime smash hit, and the 700,000 units of SFB sold over 28 years make it one of the top five wargames of all time. (A few RPGs sell better, most don't. Two card games sell better, most lose money.) For as long as I have been a gamer, it has been hell finding other games. In my college ROTC unit of more than 100 post-adolescent boys with an interest in the military, three played wargames. In my college dorm with six hundred people, the wargame club could only reach a total attendance of ten if the four gamers I knew in Amarillo drove 120 miles for a game weekend, and so far as I could tell, no other dorm had a wargame club. There just aren't that many of us willing to study a situation, take a risk, and make a decision. Perhaps that is the real reason why so many game players (compared to the denizens of any other hobby) try to go into the game business?