[ilaksh]

To me there are a couple of things going on. Both were touched on by the article to different degrees.

One thing is that videos games interest is largely affected by trends. When PUBG blew up I had been out of the loop and I actually thought it was a novel concept. But it wasn't. It was just an improvement to game modes that had existed for years. Now we have seen Fortnite take over interest in PUBG and now with Apex not because it was a totally new thing but because it's a familiar thing with new wrinkles. It's a lot like clothing fashion. We don't really go for totally new ideas because we want to fit in. There is a network affect going on where the hot new thing dominates just because everyone is doing it now. So there is definitely a limited amount of attention.

The other thing is the fact that various video streaming services exist and people can get much of the same experience from video or streams as they get from actually playing games. But video or streams are free or inexpensive whereas each new game requires a heavy investment. It is enjoyable to watch someone else play a game. Not quite as fun as playing it yourself necessarily but it also takes much less effort. You can also get various degrees of social benefits from streams or videos depending on how much time or effort. Again, not as good as "real" socialization necessarily, but also usually with much less effort.

I would go so far as to say that a lot of the investment into assets, programming, story, content in general is being broadcast out for free or low cost or for the benefit of streaming platforms/streamers and it's possible that the producers of those video games are not able to make as many sales as they would have had their content not been available (albeit in a non-interactive way) on those broadcast platforms. Which is not to say that it's necessarily overall bad for sales or bad for consumers. I just think it has an effect of sales.