From Geek to Chic: Record Sales Signal Video Games' Arrival

It's hardly news anymore that the average video game player is over 30, that millions of women across the globe are gaming or that it's big business akin to the movie industry.

It's possible that gaming has become so commonplace that few have bothered to realize that it might just be … cool.

That's probably why it wasn't widely reported in the mainstream press that the video and PC gaming industry earned record-setting profits last year -- to the tune of about $13.5 billion, an 18 percent increase over 2005, according to the NPD Group.

"It's a pretty significant increase," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst for NPD. "I think we're going to continue to see robust growth in the industry continuing in 2007."

Of course, new game consoles from Sony and Nintendo helped, as did sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the many games released for the system over the year. Hand-held machines and games for the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable were instrumental, and a somewhat surprising showing from Sony's last generation PlayStation 2 made it a banner year.

But perhaps the biggest factor in the industry's success during 2006 wasn't the glossy hardware or the cutting-edge games but instead a subtle shift in the once-geeky public perception of the gamer persona. Consumers just don't feel so strange about buying or playing video games anymore.

Everyone's a Gamer

"Whether it's on a console, PC or cell phone, everybody's playing," said Sam Kennedy, editor-in-chief of gaming community and news hub 1UP.com.

People who grew up with video games are getting older -- duh. As that happens, they're the ones with the incomes. They're the heads of households and they choose not to put down their controllers.

Even people who would never consider themselves "gamers," Kennedy said, are still playing online poker, solitaire on their computer or iPod, or maybe a game of Snake on their cell phone.

"There are things we used to talk about that seemed like pie-in-the-sky talk, like the mainstreaming of games, but now I think it's happened," said Jeff Green, editor in chief of Games for Windows: The Official Magazine. "In general, what used to be called 'geeky' is just mainstream nowadays."

The gaming culture is even touching the celebrity set.

Paris Hilton has been spotted with a Nintendo DS hand-held gaming system. Houston Rockets' basketball player Shane Battier almost brags about carrying a top-of-the-line Alienware gaming laptop on the road. What once was geek, it seems, is now is chic.

"People aren't apologizing so much anymore about what they choose to do with their time, even when they're playing games," said Green.

NPD's numbers are focused on the video game console business, PC gaming and the handheld market, but, really, electronic games can be found everywhere -- from news Web sites featuring current events trivia to plug-and-play versions of Pac-Man to handheld blackjack games or Milton Bradley's Battleship. Electronic gaming is just something we do, and it can take many different forms.

Frazier notes that, if anything, the industry is only creating more gamers within the younger generation.

"Games are kind of on the cusp of arriving," she said. "There has been a little bit of a stigma attached to video games, but if you look at the toy industry, the game category is one of the most successful."