Old stereotypes die hard.Picture a video-game player and you will likely imagine a teenage boy, by himself, compulsively hammering away at a game involving ray guns and aliens that splatter when blasted.Ten years ago that might have borne 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.
Over the past ten years the video-game industry has grown from a small business to a huge,mainstream one.With global sales of $56 billion in 2010, it is more than twice the size of the recorded-music industry.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 of broader technological changes.Video gaming, unlike music, film or television, had the luck to be born digital.In fact, there is plenty for old media to learn.
Video games have certainly been swept along by two forces: demography 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.Meanwhile rapid improvements in computing power have allowed game designers to offer experiences that are now often more cinematic than the cinema.
But even granted this good fortune, the game-makers have been clever.They have reached out to new customers with new methods.They have branched out into education, corporate training and even warfare, and have embraced digital downloads and mobile devices with enthusiasm.Though big-budget games are still popular, much of the growth now comes from “casual” games that are simple, cheap and playable in short bursts on mobile phones or in web browsers.
The industry has excelled in a particular area—pricing.In an era when people are disinclined to pay for content on the web, games publishers were quick to develop “freemium” models, where you rely on non-paying customers to build an audience and then extract cash only from a fanatical few.
As gaming comes to be seen as just another medium, its tech-savvy approach could provide a welcome shot in the arm for existing media groups.
The phrase “tech-savvy approach” in the last paragraph probably means________.无参考译文
老套的成见总是难以改变。谈到电子游戏玩家，你可能会想到一个十几岁的男孩，独自着了迷似地重复玩着一个游戏，游戏中多半会有光电枪和外星人，爆炸声噼噼啪啪响个不停。十年以前，这多少是符合实际情况的。但当今的玩家很可能是个中年上班族，正在她的智能手机上玩“愤怒的小鸟”。在电子游戏最大市场的美国，玩家的平均年龄是37岁，女性占五分之二。
在过去十年中，电子游戏行业已经从一个微不足道的小行业发展成为一个庞大的主流产业。2010年电子游戏的全球销售值高达560亿美元，相当于音乐碟片行业的两倍。即便在目前经济萧条的情况下，电子游戏行业仍然有着近9%的年增长率。
电子游戏行业的成功是由于幸运还是由于本事？弄清这个问题意义重大。因为其他娱乐行业都倾向于认为游戏行业幸运地得益于科技领域的总体进步。和音乐、电影、电视不一样，电子游戏一开始就是以数据技术为基础的。其实，电子游戏行业有很多东西是值得传统媒体学习的。
诚然，电子游戏的发展受到两大力量的推动：人口和科技。第一代游戏玩家-20世纪70年代和80年代早期出生的孩子——现在已经三十多岁了。他们中很多人仍然喜欢电子游戏，也花得起更多的钱。同时，迅速发展的电脑技术已经可以使游戏设计得比影院还具有影院效果。
即便有这些幸运之处，电子游戏生产商的聪明也是不可忽视的。为了吸引新顾客，他们使出了新的招数。他们已经把业务扩展到了教育、公司培训，甚至军事领域，并且正积极地在数据下载、移动通信领域下功夫。大型游戏仍然很热门，但现在业务增长更多地来自那些更为“随意”的游戏，这类游戏简单、廉价，并且可以短时间地在手机或网上玩一下。
电子游戏产业擅长的一个特别的领域是定价。鉴于当下人们对网上提供的各种内容大都不愿付费，游戏软件的出版商们及时创造了“免费增值”模式，这种模式依赖不付费的顾客来扩大客户群，然后从少量痴迷的顾客身上赚钱。
随着电子游戏被看作另一种媒体，电子游戏行业善于利用技术的运营策略对其他各种现有的媒体应当有很大的启示作用。