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Everyone is trying to get us to go outside or stay inside and play. Seriously. Peloton, Netflix, Zoom, TikTok, Amazon, Apple and Google are either trying or making much bigger strides in video games.

What’s going on?

The simple answer is that people globally are already spending too much time and money on video games, and both established game companies and newcomers alike are watching all kinds of interactive digital experiments to get more of our time and money.

While my own ambitious video game has come to an end in the era, I’m excited for this development. BrickBreaker for Blackberry. It feels like we’re in the middle of reimagining both what a “video game” is and what online leisure can be – perhaps more engaging and social and a little less passive apocalypse scroll. (Or I might be reading this too much. Yes, it might just be about money.)

Whatever the motivation, games may soon feel inevitable. New features in Zoom – yes, that’s Zoom – include: poker, trivia and mystery games. Peloton, the manufacturer of the $2,500 exercise bike, is releasing a game that allows it. the power of humans to command a spinning virtual wheel. Netflix confirms it’s planning this week add video games to the online entertainment service. Facebook, TikTok, Amazon, Apple and Google offers us video games or sells game subscriptions to varying degrees. (New York Times getting bigger into digital games and puzzles too.)

Video games are big business got bigger During the coronavirus pandemic, it’s no surprise that more companies want to be part of the action. Soon statement Accenture estimates that global sales related to games are higher than overall revenues from movies and music. These figures include sales of traditional video games for computers and consoles, smartphone games, advertisements in games, and more. Video games also have cultural significance, as Olympic organizers demonstrated this week. Accompanied by game music at the opening ceremony.

We may actually need to change our terminology, because many new digital games are different from what we traditionally describe and imagine video games to be – the cinematic worlds of PlayStation or Xbox.

Many new games are blurring the lines between video games and other social activities, just as smartphones introduce us to simpler games that take advantage of the unique features of phones such as gyroscopes and on-the-go internet connections. Pokémon Go, Fortnite and between us are video games, but they are also hangouts for friends. pop culture momentsopportunities for political organization and more.

What’s exciting about many of the new gaming experiments is that they signal that they’ve moved beyond a stage where online and smartphone media often mirror what’s happened before – like many podcasts, talk radio, Netflix was like television and online news sources were like newspapers.

I know games are not stimulating examples of people’s social connection, but it feels like something exciting is going on. There is more coming together to arrive at new digital forms that emphasize interaction rather than passive reading, watching or listening.

We will take more sophisticated games at the cutting edge of technology to challenge our minds, bodies, and social interactions, and more that don’t fit in the video game box. I’m interested to see them all.

Before you go …

• Are the good times VERY good? The epidemic has mobilized technology companies and managers.”to another universe of wealth and influence”writes my colleague David Streitfeld. David spoke with tech executives and industry critics about the benefits and dangers of even more dominant dominance of technology.

• Wikipedia is a blueprint for better public health communication: Misinformation researcher Renée DiResta says That the Internet encyclopedia is a good model for government epidemic communications that will keep up with evolving scientific knowledge, provide visibility into who is saying what, and touch a wide variety of voices.

• How to watch the Olympics without cable TV: Hard. A Washington Post helpful guide It includes the Peacock streaming service, password sharing, and old-fashioned NBC.

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Sydney’s sulfur-crested cockatoos taught each other how to remove trash cans. Also, Australia’s scourge of animals – these cockatoos and white ibis known as “thousand chicken” – are they beautiful?

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