Escapism is a Booming Business

Two pieces of news hit the wires recently. The most surprising of the two is the fact that gaming outpaced the U.S. economy by a ratio of 4 to 1 from 2003-2006. The second is the merger of two large game producers, Activision and Blizzard, in a reported $18.1 billion deal pushed through by Vivendi Games.

In 2006 alone, gaming added $3.8 billion to the GDP employing 80,000 people across the country and largely in California. The exploding growth of our newest mode of escapism leads this inquisitive writer into a pit of conjecture. Is the gaming boom a reincarnation of the silver screen boom in the 1930s? Or even miniature golf in the 1920s? Or is it its own animal? How does it reflect the state of the American consumer, and what does it forebode for the future?

Video Game Mecca image by TedsBlog [cc, 2.0]