March 23rd, 2022

Ready Player One? Chambers Associate and Whistler Partners Interview Gregory Boyd on the Videogame Industry

Interactive Entertainment Practice Group co-Chair Gregory Boyd speaks to Chambers Associate and Whistler Partners in an article about how videogames are shaping the future of entertainment. Greg recollects, “I grew up in the 70s and 80s, so I grew up right when videogames were just starting to emerge into popular culture. You don’t get to be present for the birth of many art forms, and in that sense it’s entirely unique.” Since then he speaks about the industry’s growth, “Last year, the industry grew to $155 billion worldwide, and it’s predicted to reach a value of a quarter trillion dollars in the next few years." Greg recalls though the videogame industry is now thriving, that was not always the case, “When I started in 2003/04 people thought it was a joke, they had in their memory the crash in videogame popularity in the 80s and they thought it was a fad. And that attitude persisted, especially in older people, long after videogames surpassed film and television in terms of money and cultural relevance.” He adds, “If you look at how under 30s spend their time, it’s gaming that is becoming the primary form of entertainment.” And, “That’s something that a lot of the population is still surprised by, just because of the speed at which it has happened.”

Greg shares his thoughts as a videogame lawyer in this evolving area, “You are participating in a cultural driver, a lot of other types of law just aren’t cultural drivers in the same way.” He adds, “All that said, you can’t fake it.” And, “You have to really be committed to videogames, or these people aren’t going to trust you. No one is ever going to ask a tax attorney ‘what kind of tax do you do at the weekends?’ People are going to ask you these things, they want people who can identify quality.”

Greg concludes by sharing that some attorneys are hesitant to include gaming on their resume: “There’s this perception that we are looking for people who can ‘put away childish things,’ but that’s just not true! If you want to get into videogames, and you feel like you’ve never had social or intellectual permission to, here’s your hall pass! If you took all the videogames off my resume, you would ask what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years!”

Read the full article here.