Do videogames beat out social media and Hollywood?

If video games are surpassing social media and movies, brands should allocate a budget to sponsor certain key video games and even create their own, thus positioning their brand and generating an experience for potential consumers.

Just moments ago, I was playing one of the most impressive and controversial video games I have ever played. I'm talking about Grand Theft Auto (GTA), a video game that could fall into the category of "Second Life" due to its realism, Matrix-style, and the amount of options you can have while playing it. In this game, we can immerse ourselves in the life of a gangster, a grumpy mafioso, and a millionaire.

GTA has broken all video game sales records, with sales of $800 million in just 24 hours. Putting this number into perspective, Harry Potter P2, the highest-grossing movie in its first week, only sold $483 million in its first week. What's really interesting is that video games are an industry that surpasses the massive Hollywood in sales. Additionally, there are surveys showing that video games are the medium with the greatest capacity to absorb people's attention, surpassing social media and movies.

Therefore, this could be an excellent time for brands to allocate budget to sponsor certain key video games, even create their own, and thus achieve discreet commercials, like those we see in movies, positioning their brand and generating an experience for potential consumers.

However, GTA has not been the only successful game with the Second Life formula. The "The Sims" saga has sold over 125 million copies, with revenues exceeding $2.5 billion. And even more strangely, the Second Life phenomenon is growing exponentially with virtual world-style social networks, such as IMVU and Second Life itself; the latter with a GDP of over $700 million from transactions between users buying and selling virtual items and even real estate with real money.

GTA and the Second Life phenomenon are an interesting case to analyze in an era where humans spend more and more time connected to the Internet every day, where we interact more and more via the Internet, and even do more business with the Internet. The interesting question to ask ourselves would be: if we see a game like Atari today and compare it to GTA, we see huge differences in just 30 years. What will happen in the coming decades with these types of games that are becoming increasingly realistic? And how could this change affect businesses?