Video games The serious business of fun_跬步千里行《英刊视译》_免费在线阅读收听下载

Video games The serious business of fun
A bit of the entertainment business that many other firms can learn from OLD stereotypes die hard. Picture（想象） a video-game player and you will likely imagine a teenage boy, by himself, compulsively（强迫地） hammering away（苦心钻研） at a game involving rayguns（镭射枪） and aliens that splatter（液体飞溅） when blasted. Ten years ago─an aeon（非常漫长的时期） in gaming time─that might have borne（忍受） some relation to reality. But today a gamer is as likely to be a middle-aged commuter playing "Angry Birds" on her smartphone. In America, the biggest market, the average game-player is 37 years old. Two-fifths are female. Even teenagers with imaginary（假想的） rayguns are more likely to be playing "Halo" with their friends than solo. Over the past ten years the video-game industry has grown from a small niche business（利基业务） to a huge, mainstream one (see our special report). With global sales of $56 billion in 2010, it is more than twice the size of the recorded-music industry.
电子游戏严肃的娱乐活动，许多其他公司可以从旧的刻板印象中学到的娱乐业务，却死得很惨。想象一下一个视频游戏玩家，您可能会想象一个十几岁的男孩，一个人自己强迫性地参加了一个游戏，其中涉及射线枪和被炸开时会飞溅的外星人。十年前，游戏时代已经来临，这可能与现实有关。但是如今，游戏玩家很可能是在智能手机上玩“愤怒的小鸟”的中年通勤者。在最大的市场美国，平均玩家年龄为37岁。五分之二是女性。即使是拥有假想弹枪的青少年，也更可能与朋友一起玩“光晕”，而不是独奏。在过去的十年中，视频游戏产业已经从小型利基业务发展成为庞大的主流业务（请参阅我们的特别报告）。它在2010年的全球销售额为560亿美元，是唱片音乐产业的两倍多.

Despite the downturn, it is growing by almost 9% a year. Is this success due to luck or skill? The answer matters, because the rest of the entertainment industry has tended to treat gaming as being a lucky beneficiary（受益者） of broader technological changes. Video gaming, unlike music, film or television, had the luck to be born digital: it never faced the struggle（艰辛） to convert from analogue（对应事物）. In fact, there is plenty for old media to learn. Video games have certainly been swept（扫除） along by two forces: demography（人口统计） and technology. The first gaming generation─the children of the 1970s and early 1980s─is now over 30. Many still love gaming, and can afford to spend far more on it now. As gaming establishes itself as a pastime（消遣） for adults, the social stigma（耻辱） and the worries about moral corruption that have historically greeted（问候） all new media, from novels to pop music, have dissipated（消散）. Meanwhile rapid improvements in computing power have allowed game designers to offer experiences that are now often more cinematic（电影感） than the cinema.
尽管经济下滑，但它仍以每年近9％的速度增长。这种成功是由于运气还是技能？答案的问题，因为娱乐行业的其他已倾向于将游戏作为更广泛的技术变革幸运的受益者。与音乐，电影或电视不同，视频游戏拥有诞生数字化的运气：它从未面临过从模拟转换的艰辛。实际上，旧媒体有很多东西可以学习。电子游戏肯定受到了两种力量的推动：人口统计学和技术。第一代游戏-1970年代和1980年代初的孩子-现已超过30岁。许多人仍然热爱游戏，现在有能力花更多的钱在游戏上。随着游戏逐渐成为成年人的消遣，社会的污名和对道德腐败的担忧从历史上一直席卷了从小说到流行音乐的所有新媒体。同时，计算能力的快速提高使游戏设计师能够提供比电影更具电影感的体验。

But even granted（赋予） this good fortune, the game-makers have been clever. They have reached out to new customers with new gadgets（小工具）: Nintendo's（任天堂） Wii console（操纵台） showed that games with cross-generational（隔代的） appeal can make money faster than a virtual（虚拟的） Rafael Nadal returns your puny（弱小的） serve（

Video games The serious business of fun

Video games The serious business of fun

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