Leisure industry in the context of Cornell University School of Hotel Administration

The video game industry is a significant segment of the leisure sector, straddling the tertiary sector, which provides services to people, and the quaternary sector, which focuses on knowledge-intensive activities such as research and technological development. This industry includes the development, marketing, distribution, monetization, and consumer feedback processes related to video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The professions involved range from game designers and software engineers to sound designers, testers, marketers, and customer support staff. Video games have gradually gained increasing relevance as a widespread cultural phenomenon, exerting significant influence on many areas of contemporary society: from the economy and the labor market to education, from consumption patterns and daily habits to architecture and urban planning, passing through sectors such as healthcare, the automotive industry, cinema and television, fashion, and sports.

The video game industry has grown from niche to mainstream. As of July 2018, video games generated US$134.9 billion annually in global sales. In the US, the industry earned about $9.5 billion in 2007, $11.7 billion in 2008, and US$25.1 billion in 2010, as per the ESA annual report. Research from Ampere Analysis indicated three points: the sector has consistently grown since at least 2015 and expanded 26% from 2019 to 2021, to a record $191 billion; the global games and services market is forecast to shrink 1.2% annually to $188 billion in 2022. Video games now compete with movies, music, and television in terms of both popularity and revenue.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It holds the responsibility for culture and sport, and some aspects of the media throughout the UK, such as broadcasting. Its main offices are at 100 Parliament Street, occupying part of the building known as Government Offices Great George Street.

It also has responsibility for the tourism, leisure and creative industries (some jointly with the Department for Business and Trade). The department was also responsible for the delivery of the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.