From an article on Nolan Bushnell’s new game bistro business:
To back track a bit, Bushnell noted that before the big crash in 1982, the video game industry, mostly through the arcade business, had reached something like 44 million players. Today, the hardcore gamers are more like 18 million.
Wow. Then again, Bushnell is implying that the 44 million players in 1982 were hardcore. That’s simply not true. I know for a fact that my mother used to play the occasional game of Pac-Man, and she was certainly a casual gamer at the time.
Of course, statistics at the ESA say that 50% of Americans play video games. I have no idea where these stats come from, or what they count as a video game (Minesweeper?). And of course, there’s the incomparable Chris Crawford’s take on the whole thing.
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