本期精翻为2023年3月25日《经济学人》周报封面文章：《风雨欲来》（Storm forming）。

Storm forming

风雨欲来

As video games grow, they are eating the media

随着电子游戏的发展，它们正在蚕食媒体

The games business has lessons for other industries and for governments

游戏产业对其它行业和政府都有借鉴意义

Warner Bros released a new Harry Potter title last month and took $850m in two weeks. That made it the second-most-successful Potter launch in the film studio’s history. But “Hogwarts Legacy”, the title in question, was no movie: it was a video game.

华纳兄弟上个月发行了一部新的《哈利波特》影片（译者注：本句中a new Harry Potter title的意思是a new Harry Potter movie，即一部新的哈利·波特影片），两周内获得8.5亿美元票房收入。这使它成为该电影工作室历史上第二成功的《哈利·波特》发布会。但《霍格沃兹：遗产》，这个片名并不是电影，而是一个电子游戏。

Warner’s hit is an example of how gaming is besting older media, both as a business and as a way for people to entertain themselves. Consumers are forecast to spend $185bn on games this year, five times what they will spend at the cinema and 70% more than they will allocate to streamers like Netflix. Once a children’s hobby, gaming has grown up. Console players in their 30s and 40s now outnumber those in their teens and 20s.

华纳的成功是游戏击败旧媒体的一个典范，无论是作为一项业务，还是作为人们自娱自乐的方式。今年消费者预计将在游戏上花费1850亿美元，是他们在电影院花费的5倍，比他们在奈飞（Netflix）等流媒体上的花费多出70%。游戏曾经是孩子们的爱好，现在它也长大了。目前，三四十岁的游戏机玩家数量超过了十几、二十岁的玩家。

Yet as gaming matures, it is not just rivalling other media. Rather like a ravenous Pac-Man, it is gobbling them up. While such intellectual property (IP) as Harry Potter may be finding success in game form, game franchises have themselves become the most in-demand kind of IP in other media. Apple’s “Tetris” movie, due out later this month, is the latest (and perhaps oddest) instance of Hollywood mining games for ideas as audiences tire of comic-book heroes. Amateur creators are doing the same. After music, gaming clips are the biggest content category on YouTube.

然而，随着游戏的成熟，它不仅仅是在与其它媒体竞争。就像一个贪婪的吃豆人（译者注：Pac-Man是著名游戏公司万代南宫梦（Bandai Namco Games）于1980年开发的一款经典游戏和2015年漫威制作的动画剧集《吃豆人的鬼魅历险》中的角色），它正在吞噬它们。虽然像《哈利波特》这样的知识产权可能在游戏形式上取得成功，但游戏特许经营权本身已经成为其它媒体中最受欢迎的知识产权类型。苹果的《俄罗斯方块》电影，定于本月晚些时候上映，是最新的（也许是最奇怪的）好莱坞挖矿游戏的实例，因为观众厌倦了漫画书中的英雄。业余创作者也在做同样的事情。继音乐之后，游戏片段是YouTube上最大的内容类别。

Mar 20th 2023 | Insert coin | Ready, player four billion: the rise of video games | As video games move from teenage distraction to universal pastime they are following the path of other mass media, says Tom Wainwright

《经济学人》2023年3月20日文章配图：投币，预备，全球电子游戏玩家已达40亿。

At the same time, audiences are increasingly consuming old media through games. The latest season of “The Walking Dead”, a long-running television drama, took the form of an interactive game on Facebook. Musicians such as Ariana Grande perform concerts in “Fortnite”. The fitness video is giving way to the fitness game. Even social networking is partly migrating to the gaming arena. Platforms like Roblox provide children with a place to play—but also to hang out, chat and shop. In so far as anything resembling a metaverse yet exists, it exists in games.

与此同时，观众也越来越多地通过游戏来消费旧媒体。最新一季的《行尸走肉》是一部长期播出的电视剧，在Facebook上以互动游戏的形式出现。阿丽亚娜·格兰德等音乐家在《要塞英雄》中举行音乐会。健身视频正在让位于健身游戏。甚至社交网络也在一定程度上转移到了游戏领域。像《罗布乐思》（Roblox）这样的游戏平台给孩子们提供一个玩耍的地方，同时也可以出去闲逛、聊天和购物。目前任何存在于类似虚拟世界（元宇宙）的东西，都存在于游戏之中。

Expect more growth. Smartphones put a powerful console in people’s pockets and unlocked hours of playtime on the commute and at the back of the lecture hall. The next boost may come from smart TVs and streaming, which bring high-fidelity games to living rooms without the need for dedicated hardware.

期待会有更多的增长。智能手机相当于在人们的口袋里放了一个功能强大的游戏控制台，在上下班的路上和教室后面释放了数小时的娱乐时间。下一个推动力可能来自智能电视和流媒体，它们将高保真（HiFi）游戏带到客厅，而不需要专用硬件。

New business models are another source of growth. Gaming’s latest boom was propelled by free-to-play games, which suck users in before monetising them with ads and in-game purchases. A new phase of expansion is coming from game-library subscriptions, which already show signs of increasing consumption and accelerating discovery, much as the cable bundle did in television. These new distribution mechanisms and business models promise more choice for consumers—which is why regulators should allow Microsoft’s $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a big gamemaker whose titles Microsoft would make available for streaming and subscription.

新的商业模式是增长的另一个源泉。游戏的最新繁荣是由免费游戏推动的，这些游戏在通过广告和游戏内购买等方式将用户货币化之前就吸收了用户。游戏库订阅正在进入一个新的扩张阶段，它已经显示出消费增加和发现速度加快的迹象，就像电视上的有线电视一样。这些新的分销机制和业务模式为消费者带来了更多选择——这就是为什么监管机构应该允许微软以690亿美元收购大型游戏制造商动视暴雪（Activision Blizzard），微软将为其游戏提供流媒体和订阅服务。

All this holds lessons for other industries—chiefly that, if you are in media, you need to be in gaming. Apple and Netflix are scrambling to complement their streaming offerings with games. Others are already there. In August Sony Pictures will release “Gran Turismo”, a film based on a Sony game which features songs by artists from Sony Music. Media firms that ignore gaming risk being like those that decided in the 1950s to sit out the TV craze.

所有这些都为其它行业提供了经验教训——主要是，如果你在媒体行业，你就需要涉足游戏。苹果（Apple）和奈飞（Netflix）正在争相用游戏来补充流媒体服务。其他人早已捷足先登。今年8月，索尼影业将发行《GT赛车》，这是一部以索尼音乐艺术家的歌曲为特色的索尼游戏改编而成的电影。忽视游戏的媒体公司，将冒着类似上世纪50年代决定对电视热袖手旁观的风险。

Governments should also pay attention. Their main concern so far has been whether games rot young minds (almost certainly not, especially if playing diverts them from social media). As gaming grows, bigger questions loom. Film and television, the engines of popular culture in the 20th century, are dominated by Hollywood. The contest in new media is more open. Western governments are waking up to the implications of the world’s hottest social-media app, TikTok, being Chinese-owned. Next, they might consider what it means that China also made two of last year’s three highest-grossing mobile games.

各国政府也应该注意。到目前为止，他们主要担心的是游戏是否会腐蚀年轻人的思想（几乎可以肯定不会，特别是如果玩游戏让他们从社交媒体上分心的话）（即社交媒体远比游戏更能腐蚀年轻人）。随着游戏的发展，更大的问题迫在眉睫。电影和电视——20世纪流行文化的引擎——都是由好莱坞主导的。新媒体领域的较量更加开放。西方政府开始意识到世界上最热门的社交媒体应用程序TikTok被中国人拥有所产生的影响。接下来，他们可能会考虑这意味着中国也制作了去年三款最卖座的手机游戏中的两款。

《经济学人》本周人物配图：TikTok CEO周受资先生出席美国国会听证会

When video games were just electronic toys, this might not have mattered. But as games expand and spill into other formats, it is becoming clear that whoever dominates gaming is going to wield clout in every form of communication. In every sense, the future of the media is in play. 

当电子游戏还只是电子玩具的时候，这可能并不重要。但是随着游戏的扩张并蔓延到其它形态，越来越明显的是，无论谁主导了游戏，谁就将在每一种形式的通信中发挥影响力。从任何意义上说，媒体的未来都是竞技场。