Dear Quartz members—
About a third of the world plays video games. 60% of Americans say they play them daily. And as the global gaming industry grows, it’s influencing much more than how we spend our free time. From entertainment to government to healthcare, industries are trying to distill and deploy gaming’s immersive power, as this week’s field guide explains.
In her state of play, contributor Mary Pilon covers everything you need to know about the gaming industry and its influence on our lives. She also reports on the most popular games of 2019 and the companies behind them.
In a QZ&A, she asks professor and game designer Ian Bogost about gamification, and he shares why he thinks lots of people in the gaming industry fundamentally misunderstand what games are about.
Quartz’s Amrita Khalid explores why video game play times are getting longer, and why some gamers aren’t happy about it. And Mary suggests a reading list if you want to understand more about gaming of all kinds.
TO DISCUSS WITH FRIENDS OVER DINNER…
Here are a few conversation starters from our guide:
- 46% of gamers are women, and most are adults. The average gamer is 33, according to the Entertainment Software Association.
- China is already the biggest market for video games, according to PwC. And Chinese tech giant Tencent is the largest gaming company by revenue, according to Newzoo, a market research firm.
- The most-downloaded free iPhone game of 2019 was Mario Kart Tour, despite its release late in the year.
- Death Stranding, a game from Kojima Productions, will take you 40-60 hours to complete. For several of those hours you’ll be watching, not playing. That’s the duration of the “cut scenes”—the cinematic sequences that advance the plot.
…OR WITH US, ON FRIDAY, ON THIS CALL
Join us for a discussion on Friday at 11:00am ET with Mary. She’ll cover the global growth of the gaming industry—from video games to board games to Dungeons & Dragons—as well as its influence in other sectors. We’ll be taking questions and comments live on the video conference call, accessible at the usual location.
If you’d like to dial in, use the following numbers:
UK: 0800-014 8469
USA: 866-226 4650
For all of the numbers, the access code is 722 994 440.
THE LUANDA LEAKS
For the last eight months, more than 120 journalists in 20 countries around the world combed through a trove of more than 715,000 leaked emails, contracts, and other documents—collectively known as the Luanda Leaks—related to the sprawling business empire of Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire daughter of Angola’s longtime former president. The leaked documents reveal how dos Santos siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars in public money out of one of the poorest countries on the planet.
Importantly, the documents also show how Western consultants and accountants from many of the world’s biggest professional services companies—including all of the Big Four, plus Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, and Accenture—wittingly or unwittingly helped dos Santos, even after allegations of corruption became public and the more tightly-regulated banking industry walked away.
Quartz published several stories related to the leaks over the weekend, including an account of how our own AI Studio partnered with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to build a system using artificial intelligence to “read” all the documents and help journalists participating in the project find the kinds of documents they needed for their reporting.
Join Quartz’s Pete Gelling and Max de Haldevang for a call Thursday at 11am ET to discuss Max’s reporting on these documents. (Call-in details are above.)
Best wishes for a productive week,
Walter Frick
Membership editor, Quartz