only to then look back on the earlier audiovisual rivalries between theater and film as well as between film and television and to discuss which of the two historical models the relationship between games and film will most closely come to resemble (Intermezzo-2 Audiovisual Rivalries). Foundational for the aesthetic relationship between audiovisual media in general and between games and film in particular proves to be their highly different affordances for the manipulation of time and space in the representation of narrative processes (Intermezzo-3 Modes of Audiovisual Storytelling).
MAKING GAMES—GAME DESIGN
Whoever develops digital games today is historically privileged: they are confronted with the opportunity, as only very few generations before them, to actively help shape the important beginnings and to set the course of a radically new medium. Contributing to this opportunity is the fact that since the turn of the century no other medium has made progress that was as speedy—both in an economic as well as a technical-aesthetic respect.
In 2014 digital gaming made up an approximately 86 billion-dollar industry, up from 23.3 billion in 2003 and 52.5 billion in 2009.15 The seven countries with the highest game revenues were the US (22 billion), China (18 billion), Japan (12 billion), South Korea (3.8 billion), Germany (3.6 billion), the UK (3.5 billion) and France (2.7 billion).16 However, there exists a huge international imbalance between production and consumption. Germany, for example, is the largest market in Europe, but non-German companies produced 75% of German revenue. Furthermore, German games make up only three percent of the world market, which is dominated by American productions, followed by games made in Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom.17
In 2013 the worldwide most successful game was GRAND THEFT AUTO V. On its first day alone it brought in 800 million dollars: “…more money than any movie—Titanic or Avatar or The Avengers—has made in its entire run in North American theaters. And given the game’s $270 million budget, it may also have cost more than any movie.”18 AAA games—meaning digital games that are produced with a large budget and promoted with a great deal of marketing—are even bigger global phenomena than literary bestsellers and movie blockbusters.
Cultural differences among the bestselling games can be seen most clearly in popular sports. In 2013 in the US, for example, MADDEN NFL 25 belonged to the top-five bestselling games with 2.7 million copies sold.19 In Germany, the soccer-simulator FIFA 14 took the top spot in place of the football-simulator with around 870,000 copies sold.20 Certain differences also show themselves in the popularity of platforms and genres. In the US, games played on computers make up only a fraction of total revenue—220 million of the 15.4 billion dollars total brought in by game software in 2013.21 In contrast, in Germany 76% of all gamers sit at a computer.22 However, smartphones enjoy the same amount of popularity in both countries (44% in the US as well as Germany).23
The demographic data also converge over time if one adopts a long-term perspective. In 2013 59% of Americans played digital games; 52% of these gamers were men and 48% women.24 29% were under 18 years old and 39% over 36. In Germany almost every other person played regularly—the numbers fluctuate between 34.2 million and 39.8 million German gamers.25 The percentage of female gamers in Germany was at 44%. 29% of German gamers were under the age of 18 and 20% over 50.26
The constant growth—more gamers, more games, higher revenue—, which has characterized the cultural assertion of digital games since the 1970s, occurred in the context of constant change in the requirements of production, distribution, and use. The foundation for this ongoing radical transition was laid with the establishment of first stationary and then also mobile broadband networking. Since the 1990s, the distribution and use of AAA console and PC titles has been virtualized and novel distribution platforms have emerged (Steam as well as app stores from Apple and Android, among others). In the USA the share of digital distribution rose between 2010 and 2014 from 29% to 52%.27 The introduction of smartphones, starting in 2007 with Apple’s iPhone, and of touch-tablets, starting in 2010 with Apples’s iPad, popularized the new genre of mobile and casual games.
In the last decade, the extreme development of distribution channels for digital games has correlated with equally strong changes in how they are financed. Promoted as well through ubiquitous digital networking, a variety of alternative economic approaches, processes, and funding models came about. Disruptive were, for one, Free-to-Play (F2P) and freemium models, based on micropayments in games that started off free, and for another pre-financing through so-called crowdfunding, i.e., the collecting of a large number of small contributions by future users of technical or medial products that had yet to be produced.
Among the currently most successful F2P online games are LEAGUE OF LEGENDS, which brought in almost a billion dollars worldwide in 2014, as well as CROSSFIRE and DUNGEON FIGHTER ONLINE—both sitting at about 900 million dollars each.28 In the field of F2P casual games, three count as the most important measuring sticks for all others: (1) FARMVILLE (2009), which had, at one point, over 80 million monthly users on Facebook29, stayed the most popular game for two years, despite attacks from critics30 and brought in more than a billion dollars in revenue;31 (2) ANGRY BIRDS (since 2009), which in 2014 had been downloaded more than 2 billion times in its various incarnations,32 and (3) CANDY CRUSH SAGA (2012), which in 2013 was played daily by 93 million people for more than a billion plays, while around 4% of players made in-game purchases33. Analyzing the MMO Game Marketplace, Cameron Koch states: “Free-to-play works because it eliminates any barrier for entry, and allows developers to penetrate markets that otherwise might be unable to play traditional console video games. […] By having millions upon millions of players, even a small percentage of players paying money regularly can add up big time.”34
As influential for the development of games was the establishment of virtualized and globalized subscription models, as they existed in principle during the early modern era at the beginning of the production of printed books. Games, which cannot find funding through traditional channels, can be financed on platforms like Indiegogo (founded 2008), Kickstarter (2009), or the German Startnext (2010). By its own account, Kickstarter alone had collected 1.5 billion dollars for 75,000 projects across 220 countries by the end of 2014, among which was a quarter-billion dollars for more than 4,000 digital games.35 So far, the most successful game projects on Kickstarter have been TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA, which raised 4.2 million dollars in 2013, PROJECT ETERNITY (later titled: PILLARS OF ETERNITY), which reached 4 million in 2012, as well as MIGHT NO. 9, which made 3.8 million in 2013.36 The “upcoming space trading and combat simulator”37
