Abstract Trouble in River City: The Social Life of video games by

The Crash and the New Consumer

Instead, the demand for video games should be viewed as part of a larger trend in entertainment consumption. Games’ initial rise and temporary decline occurred during periods of overall increasing demand for entertainment products. The late 1980s resurgence is partial evidence that demand merely sat dormant while the industry reorganized. The conditions for the industry’s overall rise—interrupted by that cataclysmic hiccup—have been a product of demographic and labor trends and the general rise of computing.

Demographic and labor trends figure most prominently. How much time Americans have to spend on entertainment goods is a direct result of available free time, which in turn is a direct result of how much people work. And while the general perception has been that Americans have increased their free time over the past century, this is not true. After sharp declines in the first half of the 20^th Century, work time leveled off, and began to increase again (Schor, 1991). Data show that Americans worked a median of 40.6 hours in 1973, but this number had risen to 50.6 hours by 1995 (Harris, 1995; Schor, 1991). American workers now work more hours per year than any other industrialized nation (Vogel, 2001). Much of this trend is due to the large-scale rise in hours worked by women. Large increases in productivity and income gains have increased the incentives to work even more while also giving families more discretionary income: less time, but more money.

Less time but more money produced a level of demand over the past quarter-century that has been described as “frenzied” (Vogel, 2001). Time has become scarcer, and Americans have been steadily spending more and more of their income to enjoy it to the fullest.

Consumers have been quick to adopt digital technologies that can be enjoyed more efficiently. For example, Americans spend a great deal of time playing card games and board games (Schiesel, 2003), but it is far easier and faster (if more expensive) to play Risk on a computer than on a tabletop with dice. In 1970, Americans were spending 4.3% of their incomes on recreation and entertainment. By 1994, this figure had grown to 8.6% (The National Income and Product Accounts of the United States, 1929-1976, 1976; Survey of Current Business, 1996). Figure C shows the dramatic increase in recreational spending, standardized to 1994 currency. A cohort analysis of age groups shows that there were 40.6 million Americans between the ages of 14-24 in 1970, but at the time of video games’ first spike in popularity this age bracket contained 46.5 million people (Vogel, 2001). This cohort, popularly known as Generation X, has continued to be a source of game players while new cohorts of young people have added to the total audience.

Further evidence of the continued demand for games could be seen in the market for home computers. At the same time that the console market was collapsing, the home computer market was growing, allowing consumers to play more complex games on home PCs. The first popular home PCs that took advantage of the early gaming possibilities were Apple Computer’s 1977 Apple II and Commodore’s 1982 Commodore 64. The spearhead for the computer games industry was a young, urbane Harvard graduate and Atari employee named Trip Hawkins. Hawkins left Atari and did for computer games what Kassar had done for console games—he professionalized them. The main difference was that Hawkins insisted on both flash and substance. His fledgling company Electronic Arts quickly became the leader of the game software market by licensing sports figures, upgrading the packaging and marketing, and challenging existing distribution channels by providing superior products (Kent, 2000). Nearly 20 years later, EA is still the industry leader in game software sales, and is a continual reminder that quality continues to matter to the game consumer.
The Modern Era, 1985-2003