Is a Media War Brewing – Hollywood vs the Video Game Industry?

At this moment, millions of Americans are stuck at home as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. In times like these, families and local communities coming together would help to stave off depression and boredom. But that is not a viable option because of social distancing being a major deterrent to the spread of the Wuhan virus. Instead, modern society has relied more and more on online entertainment. Yet with a poor internet infrastructure, there could be a media war brewing in which Hollywood will be up against the video game industry and other entertainment mediums. 

Already we have seen articles claiming that video games are eating up bandwidth when that is a false fact. It is really video streaming services that are taking up the majority of internet bandwidth. According to networking equipment company Sandvine, 60% of the bandwidth was being used up by video alone in 2019. 

This is Hollywood trying to drive a false narrative before the internet starts to buckle under the strain.

I allege that this is a false narrative but there is proof to back it up. Just going back to the Sandvine report, Sony Downloads and XBOX Live combined only accounted for 5.2% of the internet bandwidth in 2019. Of course, this could just mean that more people were watching movies and tv shows online.

However, the number of users wouldn’t make a big difference if there were more gamers than couch potatoes. Video games, by necessity, were designed to use as little bandwidth as possible. This shouldn’t be a surprise since there wasn’t a lot of bandwidth when your internet connection was through a 56k dial-up modem.

Meanwhile, when video streaming started really taking off, it was due to much faster internet speeds via cable and cable modems. Prior to that, what videos were being streamed during the era of the dial-up modem were low quality. So how both entertainment mediums have evolved shows in the use of bandwidth. 

With faster download speeds available to help video streaming take off, we see how much internet usage it takes up. Just streaming a Netflix standard definition video takes up 1GB per hour and an HD video from Netflix uses up 3GB per hour. On your phone, a 420p YouTube video will end up being around 246MB per hour but the video quality is so poor that it isn’t even worth watching. 

As for the other side, video games take up a fraction of the internet usage when compared to video usage rates. Destiny 2, which is a more recent game, and relies on a lot of bandwidth, will eat up 300MB per hour. But it is on the high side when it comes to video games. World of Warcraft will average around 25MB-160MB per hour while more modern, popular games will be even lower such as Fortnite (70MB), PUBG (40MB), Overwatch (135MB), DOTA 2 (120MB), and League of Legends (45MB).

The only criticism to level at the video game industry would be the size of games with many of the big, AAA games being large downloads such as the recently released Call of Duty: Warzone which is an 80GB download. But this is a one-time major download for installation purposes that can be throttled down to a more manageable level that is already starting to happen as Sony and Microsoft have taken steps to do this. 

But despite the fact that video games, overall, utilizes a fraction of the internet bandwidth, unlike videos which take up the majority, Hollywood is going to strike back. Why? Because Hollywood is going to be desperate to make money the longer these lockdowns and quarantines remain in effect. 

For a long time, Hollywood’s global revenue has been far surpassed by the video game industry. In 2019, Hollywood’s global revenue was $42.5 billion while the video game industry pulled in $152.1 billion with the mobile industry accounting for $68.5Bn, consoles ($47.9Bn), and PC ($35.7Bn). But right now, because of social distancing, people are not going to the movie theaters. Which will severely cut into 2020’s global revenue. Already we are seeing some major movie releases, like Wonder Woman 1984, being pushed back to later this year in the hope that the lockdowns and quarantines will be over before then. 

However, some studios might not be able to afford delaying and will have to release directly to digital platforms. Yet as this pandemic continues to be a problem, wallets will be lighter and bank accounts will be smaller prompting families to be more frugal. But if consumers want the best bang and bandwidth for their buck, movies and TV will be at the bottom of the list compared to other entertainment mediums. 

Because of this, don’t be surprised to see Hollywood resort to old tactics. More specifically, raising up unfounded claims that video games cause violence, they don’t, while we could see the spin that video games use up more bandwidth than movies and TV like one actor recently claimed (which is false). Though, after he made such a claim, he was rushed by an online horde that quickly disproved this false narrative. 

So what about the other entertainment mediums such as music, podcasts, and literature? The impact of these other sectors on the world’s bandwidth is small to negligible. While there will be an increase in the consumption of songs, podcasts and reading the main fight will be between Hollywood and the video game industry. 

In a nutshell, Hollywood is looking at an exceptionally bad year for its bottom line while the video game industry could see a surge. So who knows how Hollywood will react and what they will do to try and keep their profits margins up. For all we know, they might try and make some backroom deals with cable companies. 

But this is just my opinion. 

Do you think a media war is coming? Sound off in the comments below!