The DeanBeat: Tearing down barriers to games and building them back up

It is time to recognize a new cycle in the game business. It’s not the “boom-and-bust cycle” that previously bedeviled the console game industry. This one is different. This cycle raises barriers to game development, tears down those barriers, and then creates new ones. Numerous speakers explored this at the GamesBeat 2014 conference, where we discussed “Total World Domination,” a theme that touched on the barriers or paths to a truly global gaming business.

It’s about opening and closing ecosystems and shutting down or creating competition and innovation. In this “barriers up, barriers down cycle,” you may find that barriers are being broken and built at the same time. Many of our speakers, like John Riccitiello, former CEO of Electronic Arts, hailed the “Golden Age of gaming,” where that boom-bust cycle is gone because gaming is expanding on so many fronts: PC, mobile, online, console, and new platforms such as virtual reality.