Elections signal cultural shifts that no creative industry can dare to ignore | Opinion
There is a perfectly logical way in which you can look at an election result – even a truly seismic election result – and say that it is largely irrelevant to the business decision-making of the games industry. Elections do not change your customer demographics; all of Washington or Westminster or Nagatachō may change overnight, but the people who bought your games yesterday are still the…
The recent US elections have the potential to significantly impact the video games industry, which is at the intersection of technology and media industries. The incoming crop of Democratic Party legislators at both state and national levels are likely to push for stricter regulations of tech industries, which could lead to changes in the regulatory environment for games businesses.
Some of the potential changes include increased regulations on data centres, online gambling, loot box and gacha mechanisms, child protection laws targeting social media companies, and net neutrality. While these regulations may pose challenges for games businesses, they could also bring more favorable outcomes such as a renewed focus on net neutrality and a more skeptical regulation of giant-scale platform holders.
However, the most significant potential change could be the deflation of the AI bubble, which has been a major driver of financial pain in the games industry in recent years. The incoming legislatures are expected to be more AI-sceptical, which could lead to a more hostile environment for the AI bubble's expansion. This could help bring sanity back into the games industry's finances and lead to more stable growth.
Written by urgent.news from GamesIndustry's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
