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Marketplace All-in-One

Skin in the Game: Lessons from the video game industry

Marketplace All-in-One

Marketplace

News, Business

4.51.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Video games are bigger than movies and music combined. What can the games — and the vast industry that surrounds them — teach us about economics, business, money and careers? We set out to answer this question by talking to folks inside the industry, as well as those trying to break into it. We visited the nonprofit mentoring program in Oakland, California, called Gameheads where, starting in high school, people go from playing video games to making them. Follow along with our podcast here, and then go check out our “Skin in the Game” immersive video series on YouTube. That goes behind the scenes to look more closely at how young people can crack into this industry. You can see the games we’ve been discussing, along with the game developers that built them.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Video games are bigger than movies and music combined.

0:14.5

What can the games in the vast industry that surrounds them teach us about, economics,

0:19.2

business, money, careers?

0:25.4

Welcome to the Marketplace Morning Report Special, we're calling Skin in the Game.

0:29.8

I'm David Brunkachio, here's one episode, surveying our coverage,

0:33.6

that goes along with our full immersion virtual adventure that we have up online

0:37.8

on our Marketplace APM YouTube channel.

0:41.4

We start with the younger people cracking into the video game industry

0:45.7

and what happens when economic forces change a neighborhood.

0:50.2

What you are looking at right now is a motion tracking suit.

0:55.4

Sumon Tedros is all velcroed up in a black jumpsuit

0:59.0

studded with wireless sensors.

1:01.3

As he moves his limbs, a digital mannequin on a screen tracks his movements.

1:06.2

Sumon, a high schooler, is learning how to use a motion capture suit

1:10.6

to create a virtual character in a video game.

1:13.7

It is pretty fun, very expensive though.

1:16.9

It's part of a nonprofit mentoring program in Oakland, California called GameHeads,

1:21.7

where, starting in high school, people go from playing video games to making them.

1:26.3

It's striking to see how students focus on creating games that draw from their lived experience.

1:31.9

Some explore anxiety or grief or matter as economic.

1:36.4

Rohelio Lara was 16 when he came to GameHeads.

1:40.2

The concept of the game is trying to explain to people gentrification in the eyes of a cashier.

...

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