The DeanBeat: After all these years, Hollywood still doesn’t get games

NBCUniversal made a big mistake this week by deciding to shut down the game publishing business that Chris Heatherly spent almost three years building. It was a work in progress, and the payoff from that investment would happen in the future, maybe in a couple of years. Instead, the strategic plan to internally publish games got cut short, and the company decided to fall back on licensing games to external developers and publishers.

This decision was shortsighted, as it suggests games are less important than movies, TV, or music. But games are the form of entertainment that connects best with young and older people alike. And since 80% of young folks are gamers, the future of games is brighter than the future of other forms of entertainment. That’s why we have a $180 billion game industry that is bigger than TV or movies.