If You Don’t Care About Gaming, You’re Wrong
... and here are 3 reasons why
You either opened this article because you are a gamer and you want to be validated OR you’re a proud non-gamer who just likes being told you’re wrong.
If you’re in the latter camp, good on ya for being interested in challenging your opinions. Or maybe you’re a bit of a masochist.
Either way. Cool.
Regardless, if you follow me odds are you care about AI, business, and the future of consumer technology. And ignoring gaming means ignoring the engine that built and continues to power the future of intelligent systems.
Here’s why:
But first! I want to introduce something really exciting!
I am starting a community of data and AI practitioners to shape the future of games. We will be hosting free events and opportunities to learn and get involved in the world of gaming, data, and analytics.
If you love video games and data, join here!
Alright, no more fakeouts.
Here are 3 reasons why you should care about gaming:
1. Gaming built AI
You can’t tell the story of AI without talking about GPUs.
And you don’t get GPUs without gamers.
The GPU wasn’t invented for machine learning. It was invented to render 3D graphics faster, because games were getting more complex and traditional computer hardware couldn’t keep up.
And as demand for more realism, higher frame rates, better shadows, smoother physics increased, that consumer pressure forced hardware companies to iterate fast and scale production. What started as a graphics problem turned into a computing revolution. By the time researchers realized that GPUs were perfect for matrix math, the gaming industry had already made them faster, cheaper, and globally available.
Here’s one way to measure that: FLOPs, or floating-point operations per second. It's a way of measuring how fast a chip can do math, especially the kinds of calculations used in graphics and deep learning.
In 1999, Nvidia’s first ever GPU, the GeForce 256 delivered 130 million FLOPs per dollar.
In 2024, Nvidia unveiled their Blackwell GB200, which hits 1.14 trillion FLOPs per dollar.
That’s a 900,000 percent increase in compute per dollar.
You can see the GPU performance per dollar over the last 2 decades below.
And even though modern AI chips are expensive (the Blackwell GB200 costs around $70,000), the gains we’ve experienced in performance per dollar spent over the last 2 decades is nothing short of incredible.
2. Gaming isn’t niche. It’s an economic giant
The video game industry is bigger than Hollywood. It’s bigger than the music industry. And it’s growing faster than both.
The gaming industry projected to hit $320 billion globally by 2026, outpacing all other forms of entertainment. That growth isn’t just happening in the US or Japan either. Developing markets like Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America are seeing double-digit year-over-year expansion, driven by mobile games and cloud-based access.
“But, Carly,” you say, “I don’t sell video games. I don’t care about the market size.” To which I say, that’s fair, but this has bigger implications than just the market size and opportunity for those with financial ties to the gaming industry.
This matters because gaming is a full-stack tech sector.
Modern video games push boundaries in real-time physics, network reliability, cloud infrastructure, GPU design, and now AI. Gamers are always demanding better - they want better graphics and better server performance. They want more realistic NPCs and dynamic storylines. They want to get online with their friends no matter where they are in the world and share a concurrent experience in real-time with no lag.
In order to solve these problems, gaming companies must be at the cutting edge across their entire tech stack.
And if you're ignoring games, you're ignoring a global tech driver with influence across hardware, software, infrastructure, and consumer behavior.
You can read more here about what I snobbily deem “interesting problems” if you’re interested.
Big Tech is so 2015.
Some of the smartest people in the world are rotting their brains by working on brain rot.
3. Gaming is surprisingly recession-resistant
You’d think U.S. gaming stocks would tank with the rest of the market in a panic like the one triggered by the recent news around tariffs. Turns out, that’s not the full story. You can read more here: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/04/07/us-video-game-stocks-weather-mondays-tariff-hits-but-japanese-firms-take-beating/
When tariffs hit in early April, the S&P 500 dropped over 10 percent. Meanwhile, things looked different for gaming:
EA (EA Sports) was down .53%, while Take-Two (2K Sports) was up 1.5%. It’s a sign the market sees these software companies as better insulated from tariffs, as players are buying digital copies of games over physical discs and cartridges more than ever before. The worry these companies face is if consumers feel the pinch of raising prices in other sectors, forcing them to cut or eliminate spending on games and in-game transactions (which make the likes of EA Sports FC and 2K Sports’ NBA 2K franchise so lucrative to their companies).
Gaming ETFs, like HERO and ESPO, are still flat or slightly up. Meanwhile, the broader market is deep in the red.
Why? Because when people tighten spending, they don’t stop playing games. They trade down from vacations and concerts to 60 dollar titles and mobile games. Even in economic uncertainty, the underlying demand for games stays strong. It’s affordable escapism. And it’s digital, so it scales better than anything that relies on physical goods.
In short: gaming isn't bulletproof, but it’s a lot more durable than people think. Especially compared to other industries tied to supply chains, retail, or ad dollars.
So yeah, if you don’t care about gaming, you’re wrong.
It’s the technical backbone of AI, a massive global economy, and a surprisingly stable place to be when everything else is on fire.
Next time someone calls themselves a gamer, maybe give them a little more credit. They helped build the future we’re all living in.
As always, share if this resonated with you and recommend Good at Business to your friends, family, and enemies.
✌️ Carly
Want More? Here are some other rants.
Are Data Engineers Becoming Obsolete?
And by “no one,” I mean everyone. But here’s what they’re missing:
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