Video Game Trends in 2017 2017 has arrived and new games are being released. so will these trends make gaming history

How Do Video Games Effect the American Economy?

Video games have been around for many years and have been fun for the entire family, and with the new year comes new trends.There are many questions that gamers still want to know, and new ones.One of them is How will Video games effect the american economy? One of these ways is through Virtual reality. Virtual reality is making a giant rise. According to John Gaudiosi from “Consumers will spend $5.1 billion on virtual reality gaming hardware, accessories and software in 2016. That’s up from the $660 million spent in 2015, says the marketing leader. Meanwhile, the global market is expected to grow to $8.9 billion in 2017 and $12.3 billion in 2018.” This is an astounding number and with technology increasing, there is bound to be more games that use virtual reality and that both the fan base and income will continue to grow.That also begs the question of Why is Virtual Reality gaming such a big thing.

Why is Virtual Reality Such a big thing

Virtual Reality gaming is one of if not the fastest rising type of gaming in the recent years, but why has it become such a big thing. The reason why is its advancing technology. Since the beginning, game developers have been striving for complete immersion into their games.Back then there was only one VR system, the Virtual Boy. The virtual boy was marketed as the first console to use stereoscopic 3D, an early form of virtual reality, however the Virtual boy was received very poorly and despised by the media. In the words of Nintendo of America chairman, Howard Lincoln, The virtual boy “just failed”. Today,virtual reality is everywhere. Sports, video games, media, and even the workplace, especially the medical field, According to “The healthcare sector is one of the biggest adopters of virtual reality, in particular as a means of training the next generation of medical professionals. This technology enables trainee surgeons to gain valuable experience but in a safe environment. They learn skills and techniques without causing harm to patients and receive constant feedback as they do so.” Even though most of those game are either violent and gory horror games or kind hearted simulators, Virtual reality gaming has become so big and expansive that it is still growing and being used by everyone. Virtual reality is such a big thing because it started out small starting with the Virtual Boy and now there are VR systems everywhere. As i said earlier, most VR games are either violent horror games or simulator games,it begs to the longly debated question: Do video games cause violence?

Are Video Games a cause of Violence in People?

Video games may be thought to melt your brain, but can they actually cause harm to others by how people interpret them. The answer isn’t as simple as it seems. This question’s answer can change based on the person asked. Some say that it can because many crimes have been traced back to a video game. One example is one of the most iconic in this argument: The Umpqua massacre. This was a shooting that happened in 2015 near Roseburg, Oregon. The shooter, Christopher Harper-Mercer killed 10 people and injured about nine. To date it is the biggest mass shooting in state history. So what does this have to do with video games. According to Lyndee Fletcher’s look at this case The entire conversation was in a 4chan chat. “Harper-Mercer was known as a recluse who was obsessed with violent gaming and the digital world, even finding supporters on those sites. On an anonymous chat room website called 4chan, there are messages that talk about what he was planning to do.A comment stated, "Some of you guys are alright. Don't go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest. So long space robots." The responses he got back to this were terrifying to say the least:"DO IT" ,"You might want to target a girl's school which is safer because there are no beta males throwing themselves for their rescue.","I am so excited for this. If this comes true then thank you for my late birthday gift anon.","I suggest you enter a classroom and tell people that you will take them as hostages. Make everyone get in one corner and then open fire. Make sure that there is no way that someone can disarm you as it possible. I suggest you carry a knife on your belt as last resort if someone is holding your gun,","Do not use a shotgun. I would suggest a powerful assault rifle and a pistol or 2x pistols. Possibly the type of pistols who have 15+ ammo"Here are the responses after the shooting:"THE MADMAN ACTUALLY DID IT"That score, ouch. Not even double digits on current reports."GOOD SHOW OP"MAY YOU RIP IN PEACE." (Fletcher) Those ones in the end were responses to him doing it.There is nothing worse than a massacre So i would say that yes it does but not all video games. He played games like Call of Duty and Halo. Games like Super Mario Bros, and Animal Crossing don’t. So i guess some of them do.Many games in the shooter genre are Esports. A big question in the eyes of casual gamers is What is Esports and why has it become such a big thing?

Why are Esports so popular?

Esports is as basic to explain as the name. It’s the way of making video games a sport. Esports was a simple concept where people who were good at a certain video game would go to a venue and play the game tourney style and could win money and prizes. So how come all of a sudden it has become as big as it is. Well to answer that you’ll need to look back. The very first esport known was the arcade masterpiece, Donkey Kong. Back then People didn’t play the games in where you needed to win a round. You just needed to have the most points. Now there are a lot more games that are counted as esports People are even making money off of these. According to Rich Grisham, a writer at, “ “eSports” refers to the competitions engineered by global organizations that culminate in big-money championship tournaments – dollar figures that can exceed $1,000,000 for winners.” The event organizers are gaining so much money that they are able to hire announce teams, have a trophy made, and being able to air these tournaments on television networks such as ESPN and TBS, and still able to give away that much money. According to Paresh Dave, a contact reporter at the Los Angeles times, “Every weekend, millions of people watch pro matches on streaming video service Twitch, which helped turn video games into a spectator sport. Fans spend as much as $200 a weekend to sell out eSports championship venues such as Staples Center and Madison Square Garden. There, event promoters woo advertisers that covet the young consumers who dominate the gaming audience.” The max capacity of Madison Square Garden is 20,789 while the Staples center is 21,000. For these venues in other sports you would have to pay a lot so that's why they are almost always never sold out, the most recent League of Legends tournament was the Worlds at the Staples Center, and the Ticket price started at $46.50 per person. So through from both the media coverage and the money they put towards advertisements, Esports has rivaled the likes of the MLB and the NHL and gained as much popularity as it has, but there is still one question that gamers and game developers always wonder; What’s next?

What does the future hold for the Video game industry?

Gaming technology is advancing nearly every second and these previous trends show it,but there is still one question on many gamers minds: What’s next? Video games are getting more and more realistic and soon the size of the in game world will become that way too. According to the Washington Post “In recent years, a kind of open-world fever has gripped the gaming industry as it races to create ever-larger and more complex sandboxes for us to play in. Published in 2001, Grand Theft Auto III had a map size of just 3 square miles. Five years later, The Elder Scrolls IV gave players 16 square miles to play around in. That figure ballooned to 104 square miles in 2013 with the release of ArmA 3, a military simulator that imagines a conflict on a fictional Mediterranean island, Altis.These numbers are pretty abstract, so let's try to put them in perspective. Here's a to-scale rendering of Altis stacked up against other game maps, including the Battlefield franchise, Skyrim, and Red Dead Redemption. It takes 7 hours of real time to walk across Altis, as YouTuber Rapskilion learned (the sped-up footage still takes nearly 10 minutes to get through).”Video games are bound to get even bigger and more beautiful. Many people think that video games are a form of art, more so than abstract art. In an interview with Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine Productions, done by Bryan Ochala, ““Games are art,” he adds. “If Marcel Duchamp can stick a urinal in a gallery and say it’s art, then I’m going to go out on a limb and say Okami is too.” These are coming from a video game designer. So in closing Video games are going to get bigger and more beautiful and are bound to make video games even more poular than they already are.

Work Cited

Alwani Rishi. "Why 2017 Might Just Be the Worst Year Ever for Gaming." NDTV NDTV, 01 Jan. 2017. Web. 25 Jan. 2017.

"Art on the Brain." Gamasutra - Are Games Art? (Here We Go Again...). N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

Fung, Brian. "The future of gaming is here. And it’s literally huge." The Washington Post. WP Company, 19 June 2015. Web. 21 Feb. 2017."

Competitive video gaming is set to return to TV in 2016." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

Fletcher/Movieguide, Lyndee. "14 Mass Murders Linked to Violent Video Games." Charisma News. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

Rich Grisham Contributor @richgrisham Published on Oct. 14, 2015 | Updated on Oct. 15, 2015 Oct. 14, 2015. "Why eSports are sweeping the world." Sporting News. N.p., 14 Oct. 2015. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

Rise of the Video game. World of Wonder Productions, n.d. TV documentary.Rise of the Video game. Discovery Channel, 21 Nov. 2007. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. <>.


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