The rest of our pals from Big Tech is also involved in gaming, at different levels. From the FT piece:
Some of the biggest tech companies already have significant stakes in the gaming world, even if they haven’t pushed far into trying to produce games themselves. These include the Apple and Google mobile app stores, which act as the main shop front for the single largest segment of the gaming market. Amazon’s Twitch and Google’s YouTube attract mass audiences for viewing video games. And through its Oculus headsets, Facebook holds the lion’s share of the nascent virtual reality market.
So, why is everyone getting into gaming?
One reason could be the metaverse. We have no idea what that thing actually is yet, but we do know gaming will be a big part of it and certainly the primary use case for a lot of early adopters of VR headsets. For a $2t company (Microsoft), spending a small portion of its reserves to get a strong footing in, just makes sense. Satya Nadella said as much.
A second reason could be casual gaming. You really wouldn’t think women who are 45+ would form the second largest demographic of gamers in India, but there you have it.