Former BioWare CEO: video games aren't mainstream... yet

Then came the Nintendo Wii, which marked a critical inflection point in the industry. When the Wii was released in 2006, it was widely panned by pundits who viewed the Sony and Microsoft consoles as the true catalysts for the golden age of gaming - How would the Wii compete, with its underpowered graphical performance? Well, not only did it compete, but for a period of four years it dominated the business, dwarfing the sales of the next generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. Nintendo had a profound and contrarian insight, one that challenged the enduring assumption that graphical horsepower was the driving force of industry growth. Nintendo's view was that more important than what the user saw was their ability to easily interact with the game. They did it by eschewing a complex game controller and replacing it with a simple wand that was as intuitive and engaging as a child's first toy. The reaction of the marketplace was immediate and conclusive. People flocked to the Wii, and the demographic profile of its users far more closely mapped to other forms of mass media than the youthful male profile of console users. Eventually the Wii ran out of gas as its innovative controller and mass-market game content were insufficient to overcome its single-purpose hardware and its closed ecosystem.

Fast-forward six years, and the glimpse that Nintendo provided the industry of what consumers need and want has evolved into a real opportunity. Playing high-quality games no longer requires an expensive, limited-purpose electronics device tethered to your television set. Throughout the day we now have access to amazing gaming hardware and the inputs for each of these devices (e.g., your mouse or your finger) are as simple as the Wii wand.

More and more games are being delivered free-to-play so consumers can try them before deciding to invest in them. Fast downloads via browsers or app stores make nearly instantaneous the time between deciding to try a game and playing it for the first time. The user experience and user interface are now designed to be frictionless, intuitive, and friendly. Games that were primarily created as fire-and-forget products have evolved into 24/7 services where data provides the ability for constant iteration and improvement.

The net result is that for the first time, games are being released that will have a chance to be played and loved by abillion (with a B) or more users during their lifetime.

This massive audience potential is going to further fuel the disruption of the traditional packaged-goods game business. The NPD Group's annual gaming report underscores this point, showing the retail game software business in North America declining in 2011 for the third year in a row. That disruption is only going to accelerate as free-to-play game developers begin to focus on delivering better games that will allow them to build their audiences based more on intrinsic enjoyment and organic word of mouth than forced social and virality mechanics (e.g., to advance you must spam your friends).

The challenge for the digital game industry shifts from growing the size of the addressable audience to creating entertainment experiences that are as memorable and beloved as our favorite films, novels, television shows, or songs.

Mark my words: This is a challenge that will soon be met.

The opportunity to create experiences that touch billions of people will inspire a wave of high-quality games that combine the immersive, engaging ingredients that drove the adoption of game consoles in the '90s and early 2000s with the understanding that in today's media market, it is the consumer who calls the shots. No longer will the argument of whether games are a true mass-market medium be based around dollars spent, but rather in lives touched.