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Joshua Ilko

Professor Babcock

CAS 137H

19 October 2023

The Increasing Corporatization of Video Games

For as long as Generation Z has been alive, video games have been a hot topic: some love

them, others hate them, and some could not care less about them. In recent years, video games

have sparked debates about technology, violence, addiction, and more, but these games have not

always had the influence they do today. The first video game was created in 1958 with the game

Tennis for Two, a simple game that consists of a screen with a horizontal line representing a

tennis court, a vertical line representing a net, and a single moving dot representing the ball. The

ball traveled left and right in arcs, and players had to time a button press on their controller to hit

the ball (“Video Game History”). Ever since then, the video game industry has grown to a

monstrous size, with companies like Microsoft acting as a titan both inside and outside of the

video game industry. Due to the video game industry’s constantly rising player count, video

game developers continually implement increasingly predatory monetization practices and place

less focus on creating high-quality games, prioritizing profits over people.

The clearest societal shift related to video games is that more people are playing video

games than ever before. According to an April 2023 report from DFC Intelligence, a strategic

market research and consulting firm, 3.7 billion people around the world consume video games

in some form (DFC Intelligence). Comparatively, an August 2020 report from DFC Intelligence

found that the global video game consumer population had just reached 3.1 billion (DFC

Intelligence). In just 2.5 years, the number of video gamers in the world increased by almost
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twenty percent. To fully understand the immensity of this growth rate, if the video game industry

continues to gain twenty percent more players every 2.5 years, it will reach the entire world’s

population in just about 10.5 years. Though this growth rate obviously cannot continue forever, it

is still staggering that video games have reached so many new people in the past few years.

The first cause of this massive growth rate is the drastically heightened accessibility of

video games now compared to the past. Primarily, consumers have many more mediums through

which to play video games. When video games were first popularized with Pong, the only ways

to play video games were in an arcade or with a home console like the Atari (“Video Game

History Timeline”). Considering the scarcity of really popular games like Pong, there was not

much incentive for the average person to buy an Atari or commit their money to an arcade. Now,

however, players can play games on a home console, a computer, a laptop, their mobile phone, or

any other portable consoles that game companies have released like the Nintendo 3DS or the

PlayStation Vita. Even for people who are not dedicated to playing games, most people have a

cell phone that they download a few games on to pass the time.

Aside from more accessible consoles, more people play video games because society’s

perception of video games and video gamers has improved tremendously. One of the most

prominent debates about video games – whether or not they directly cause violence – now has a

heavily researched and objective answer (in favor of video games) that did not previously exist.

According to a 2010 Harvard Health article, prominent organizations including the American

Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry believed

that children and adolescents learn by mimicking behaviors they see, so playing a violent video

game would increase the likelihood of a young person committing a violent crime (“Violent

Video Games”). This theory has since been disproven by researchers like Christopher Ferguson,
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a professor of psychology at Stetson University who has researched violent video games for over

fifteen years. He finds that video games have “little impact on kids’ aggression, mood, helping

behavior, or grades.” His findings also align with what he has observed in other unbiased,

scholarly articles (PBS). With society stigmatizing video games less and less, it makes sense that

most people feel more comfortable enjoying video games for themselves, leading to an increase

in players around the world.

This growing player base is so important because it represents something crucial to the

video game industry: money. Ultimately, the point of video game development is to make a

profit. The best way to do this is by maximizing the possible audience of consumers, and the

expansion of video games alongside the disappearance of reasons to avoid playing video games

make for a higher potential profit.

Unfortunately, game developers aren’t just using the increased player base to naturally

grow their profits; instead, they are striving to maximize profits by increasing the prices of video

games. One of the most noticeable changes is in the price of AAA (Triple-A) games – games

published by major developers with significantly higher budgets than most other projects.

According to Rob Fahey, an editor for a video game industry news outlet who personally

witnessed this price hike, in 2005, the price of Triple-A games rose from $50 to $60, beginning

with the generation of consoles containing the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 (Fahey). Triple-A

games have cost $60 since 2005, and that has only changed recently with the release of some

monumental Triple-A games for the Xbox series S/X, the PlayStation 5, and the Nintendo

Switch. Heavily-anticipated games that had solidified fanbases before release such as Elden

Ring, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom, Hogwarts Legacy, God of War Ragnarok, and

more all have sold for $70. These dedicated fanbases of games have committed to purchase and
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play some of these games regardless of the price, allowing companies to charge prices that would

historically be considered egregious.

Similarly, according to Joost van Dreunen, a professor at New York University’s Stern

School of Business and a former CEO of a games market research firm, there are some

justifiable reasons for this price hike such as more competitive wages for programmers. He

believes, however, that the increased prices are “largely a move by platforms and publishers to

capture more market value” (Ho). Essentially, Joost finds that people are willing to pay $70 for

these games, so the developers can afford to charge that much. This price hike reflects the

increasing greed of video game developers who are making it harder than ever before for their

consumers to enjoy video games without feeling a greater financial burden.

Along with increasing the prices of actual video games, developers have started to make

“microtransactions” – purchases within the game – much more prominent, even in full-priced

games. Historically, one would reasonably expect that, by purchasing a full-priced, $60 game,

they would be entitled to all of the content available for the game. This has almost always been

the case, with the main exception being downloadable content (DLC), which typically adds a

significant amount of story to the base game for an extra cost. In many recent Triple-A titles,

microtransactions have been heavily present and sometimes even necessary to properly play the

game.

In Ubisoft’s $60 single-player game Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (released in 2020),

players can unlock nine different cosmetic sets of armor in the game just by playing. However,

they can also unlock nine different sets in the microtransaction store, with each set costing about

$20 (“Microtransactions”). Although many players feel this is not egregious because the
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microtransactions are mostly cosmetic, it can still absolutely be a frustrating experience to pay a

significant amount for a game only to be forced to pay even more to acquire everything in it.

A much worse offender is Star Wars: Battlefront II, a $60 2017 multiplayer game. In this

game, players can unlock everything by playing for countless hours and dedicating extreme

amounts of time. Alternatively, players can pay for microtransactions and make significant

progress without putting nearly the same amount of time in (“Microtransactions”). In a game

where you play against other people, many of whom have spent money, the game essentially

forces you to pull out your credit card to be on an even playing field. This is incredibly predatory

from game developers, especially considering you can only get to this point after spending $60

for the game. Overall, the increasing prices and blatant and predatory microtransactions are an

obvious indication of the increased drive for profits that companies now have.

Developers’ expanding greed has also led to the sacrifice of the quality of their games to

appease shareholders. Multiple high-profile games have been released with significant “bugs”

(errors in the game’s code) or completely missing or undelivered features. Cyberpunk 2077 is a

Triple-A title that was famously released with enough bugs and other issues that it was labeled

by many to be “unplayable.” It was so bad that Sony removed the game from the PlayStation

store and gave those who bought it a refund. The biggest issue with this release is with the

awareness of Cyperbunk’s developer, CD Projekt Red, who should have known that they were

misleading their audience by only allowing early reviews from people playing on high-end PCs

(which made the game look visually stunning), which made all console players feel shocked

when the game kept crashing on their devices. A game developer misleading consumers to the

extent that CD Projekt Red did would have been unthinkable just a decade or two ago, but now,

it seems like multiple developers have qualms about deceiving their fans.
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For example, Overwatch 2 is another Triple-A game, and its developer,

Activision-Blizzard, failed to deliver a significant portion of the game’s promised content.

Overwatch 2 was supposed to have a replayable story mode, but Activision-Blizzard found that it

would not be profitable enough, so they scrapped multiple years of progress. The announcement

that the story mode would never be finished was only made a few months before the content was

supposed to be released. Considering the magnitude of this decision, the company must have

known they were scrapping the content for months if not years. The choice to wait was an active

decision meant to minimize the backlash from the announcement as well as to maximize profits

from players who were buying cosmetics before knowing about the undelivered content.

In both of these cases, developers made decisions that were actively bad for their players

to make more money. In the case of Cyberpunk 2077, the developers wanted to save money on

bug fixes, so they simply released an unfinished game. In the case of Overwatch 2, The devs

chose to wait for as long as possible before making an announcement that would harm their

game so that unknowing players would spend their money before realizing they wouldn’t get the

chance to use the cosmetics they purchased as much as they expected.

Fundamentally, the increasing corporatization of the video game industry – a field that

used to be a niche hobby and quickly rose to popularity – represents the ease with which any

other industry could begin to experience predatory monetization. For example, although the

sports industry may not experience the same level of undelivered promises or lower-quality

entertainment as the video game industry, stadium owners and organizations could commit to

suddenly increasing ticket prices and concession prices, forcing their most dedicated to fans to

pay more to experience the sports games they love.

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The final pivotal shift in the video game industry in recent years is the direct involvement

and interference of the federal government in the industry. Until the past decade, the federal

government didn’t involve itself with video games aside from a few instances of the Supreme

Court striking down unconstitutional state laws that banned the sales of some video games (“A

Timeline”). Just last year, however, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) temporarily prevented

the Microsoft Corporation’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard with the intent of completely

blocking it. They cited that, if Microsoft owned Activision Blizzard, Microsoft would have a

monopoly on many popular game franchises like Call of Duty, which would reduce competition

from console makers like Sony and allow Microsoft to further solidify their monopoly. This

obstruction from the FTC has massive ramifications for the video game industry as a whole, as it

represents how much more influence the video game industry now has on society; if this

acquisition wouldn’t have significant impacts on society, the FTC wouldn’t bother to get

involved.

Video games have always been a safe haven for many people. They have been a way to

foster communities, and developers in the past have always taken an active role in supporting

their communities. The constantly worsening corporatization of the video game industry seeks to

change that. It values maximizing profit over maximizing the user experience. The rapid growth

of the video game industry is highly beneficial for consumers, but if developers continue to shift

towards extremely predatory monetization practices, then they might kill this thriving industry

and its passionate community.

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Works Cited

DFC Intelligence. “Global Video Game Audience Reaches 3.7 Billion - DFC Intelligence.” DFC

Intelligence, 7 Apr. 2023,

www.dfcint.com/global-video-game-audience-reaches-3-7-billion/. Accessed 20 Oct.

2023.

---. “Global Video Game Consumer Population Passes 3 Billion.” DFC Dossier,

14 Aug. 2020, www.dfcint.com/dossier/global-video-game-consumer-population/.

Accessed 20 Oct. 2023.

Fahey, Rob. “The $70 AAA Price Point -- It’s about Time | Opinion.” GamesIndustry.biz,

GamesIndustry.biz, 20 Nov. 2020,

www.gamesindustry.biz/the-usd70-aaa-price-point-its-about-time-opinion. Accessed 20

Oct. 2023.

Ho, Justin. “Why More New Video Games Now Cost $70.” Marketplace, 10 Feb. 2023,

www.marketplace.org/2023/02/10/why-more-new-video-games-now-cost-70/. Accessed

20 Oct. 2023.

“Microtransactions Are Great for Game Companies, Less so for Players.” NPR, 11 Mar. 2021,

www.npr.org/2021/03/11/975765363/microtransactions-are-great-for-game-companies-le

ss-fun-for-players. Accessed 20 Oct. 2023.‌

PBS NewsHour. “Analysis: Why It’s Time to Stop Blaming Video Games for Real-World

Violence.” PBS NewsHour, 5 Aug. 2019,

www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-why-its-time-to-stop-blaming-video-games-for-r

eal-world-violence. Accessed 20 Oct. 2023.

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“A Timeline of Video Game Controversies - National Coalition against Censorship.” National

Coalition against Censorship, 3 Oct. 2022,

ncac.org/resource/a-timeline-of-video-game-controversies. Accessed 7 Nov. 2023.

“Video Game History - Timeline & Facts.” HISTORY, Sept. 2017,

www.history.com/topics/inventions/history-of-video-games. Accessed 20 Oct. 2023.

‌“Video Game History Timeline - the Strong National Museum of Play.” The Strong National

Museum of Play, 5 Dec. 2022, www.museumofplay.org/video-game-history-timeline/.

Accessed 20 Oct. 2023. ‌

“Violent Video Games and Young People - Harvard Health Publishing - Harvard Health.”

Harvard Health, Harvard Health, Oct. 2010,

www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people.

Accessed 20 Oct. 2023.