America’s entertainment software industry creates a wide array of computer and video games to meet the demands and tastes of audiences as diverse as the nation’s population. Today’s gamers include millions of Americans of all ages and backgrounds.  In fact, more than two-thirds of all American households play games. This vast audience is fueling the growth of this multi-billion dollar industry and continuing to make the video game industry one of the most lucrative entertainment genres. Below is a list of 10 entertainment software industry 2009 facts:

1. U.S. computer and video game software sales grew 22.9 percent in 2008 to $11.7 billion – more than quadrupling industry software sales since 1996.
2. Sixty-eight percent of American households play computer or video games.
3. The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.
4. The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 39 years old.
5. Forty percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (34 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).
6. In 2009, 25 percent of Americans over the age of 50 play video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.
7. Thirty-seven percent of heads of households play games on a wireless device, such as a cell phone or PDA, up from 20 percent in 2002.
8. Eighty-four percent of all games sold in 2008 were rated “E” for Everyone, “T” for Teen, or “E10+” for Everyone 10+.
9. Ninety-two percent of game players under the age of 18 report that their parents are present when they purchase or rent games.
10. Sixty-three percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.

If you’re a tech nerd like I am you can’t help but take note of the incredible hype building for the yet unannounced Apple Tablet. The speculation over whether Apple was working on such a device started really heating up months ago in the lead up to the last Apple event in which the iPhone 3GS was announced. Since that time the rumour mill has been churning at an astounding rate with coverage of everything from Apple’s patents that might be used in such a device to the recently held collective thought (hey if the NY Times says it’s so I think it’s safe to call it the collective belief) that yes this device is being built so we should now move to speculating on what it will be called. The ability of Apple to sit on the sidelines and not say a word yet have this much speculation and hype building says a ton about the passion people have for their products (more on that in this post) but it’s not just the normal hype and speculation around Apple products that we typically see – it is more than just articles on TUAW and mocked up images floating around the Internet, rather there is almost a cry for the product coming from both consumers and very interestingly from the publishing world. It’s this last point (the desire from the publishing world) that I find really fascinating and want to explore a little further in this post.

The idea of the Tablet computer has been around for a long time, you can even go back to Apple’s Newton handheld to really find that it’s been tried by many pretty unsuccessfully to this point. Microsoft really tried to push the Tablet a few years ago even going so far as to have Bill Gates demo it in many spots. However it’s really never gained the traction that was expected – people just couldn’t or wouldn’t adopt the new form factor and while I (I owned an Acer) always found the handwriting recognition and other Tablet features cool, there was just not enough reason for consumers to buy. Not enough software was created for the Tablet and while companies like Zinio were trying to start up with digital magazines there was not really any specialized media made for it – at the end of the day it looked cool but not much more. Skip ahead to present day…

Today there are still Tablet devices available from multiple manufacturers but they’re pretty much the same as those from the last 7-8 years. The real difference is that while consumers definitely seem excited about a new Tablet and seem ready to buy an additional computing device (see the great Netbook and Kindle sales this holiday season) it is the publishing world which seems to be begging for Apple to launch a product to save them.

Print publications whether newspapers or magazines are dying – readership + advertising is at an all time low, classified ads have moved to Craigslist, and only a very select few publications have been able to charge anything for their content online. It would only seem logical that these publications need to find a way to move their product to the digital space but the really interesting thing is that to do so they have basically thrown up their hands and said we need a new printing press to be invented and that printing press should come from Apple. Beyond a bevy of articles about the need and desire of these publishers to have Apple throw them a lifeline it was really a video from Time/Sports Illustrated that caught my attention. The video produced by Time and showcasing the potential future of Sports Illustrated (embedded below) looks great but caused me to step back and take a moment to look at what the message was to the business versus tech communities.

From a pure technology standpoint of course all of us (the tech nerds like me) are waiting with baited breath for the Tablet specifically from Apple and regardless of whether it really takes off like the iPod/iPhone or it’s considered a dud like Apple TV (just to show Apple’s not perfect) we’ll love that it’s out there and ushering in a new computing form factor beyond the Netbook. So I get that the video is a showcase of what could be. From a business standpoint though I really find the messaging of a video like this to be suspect.

What is Time trying to say with this video? From my standpoint it seems to be really giving the message that publishers are waiting for someone else to solve their business problems by inventing them a magical new printing press. I find that it signals that they feel they are unable to move forward or innovate at all on their own. While it is a very cool video indeed, if I’m an executive at Time I’d much rather my team be figuring out ways to make all of our publications more advertising and subscription friendly in the online space and less time creating videos full of speculation and conjecture. Don’t get me wrong, if Apple is indeed working on such a device (and pretending I still am an exec at Time) I would expect my team to have secured a partnership so that we had content ready at launch. We know Apple really knows how to launch a product so I’d want Steve Jobs to show our product at that launch, but Apple has not confirmed anything and so I’d expect to see a video like this presented to me (as an executive) internally but I wouldn’t want to announce to the world via YouTube that we’re waiting on a Hail Mary pass from Apple.

What do you think? Am I crazy or is there some real mixed messaging going on here?

Short post cuz the video pretty much says it all and I can’t take any credit here.

If you want to read the original post and get your hands on many of the sources as well as the stats go here. If you want to see a presentation (different authors) with very similar statistics on slideshare go here.

Grab some popcorn cuz its a few minutes but its good.