Every platform is a games platform

The other day, my Wikipedia browsing was rudely interrupted by a full-screen popup “introducing Wikipedia games.” The game itself was fairly simple, asking which of two events came first, but I felt it broken the purity of Wikipedia as an information platform.

I see this as part of a bigger trend. Wikipedia has joined “information platforms” like the New York Times, LinkedIn, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and more who are investing more in gaming. Why?

1. Games are much more monetizable than information is. Turning attention into money is always a challenge for these companies. Games give them a way to do this.
2. Games drive retention. Daily games like Wordle keep people coming back day after day. Games are more consistently entertaining than information is.
3. Games tie naturally to subscription models. Coming back to play a game every day makes your monthly subscription feel worth it.
4. Games appeal to a younger audience. Old guard media organizations are trying to appeal to the youth and the youth love games.

When you think about it, these platforms are just lagging the largest companies in the world with their focus on gaming:

• Games on Facebook have hundreds of millions of player each month, they have spent billions on VR (largely a gaming platform), and games played a huge role in the early Facebook experience (Farmville anyone?).
• Apple recently announced a new “Games” app which some theorize could lead to a change in the 70/30 app store take rate, which is controversial but critical to their business. Games as been core to iOS as long as its been around.
• Graphic cards for gaming was nearly all of Nvidia’s business until recently.
• Xbox is a huge part of Microsoft, but they’ve also acquired game studios like Activision Blizzard. Steve Ballmer calls Xbox “Microsoft’s second trick”
• Amazon owns Twitch but have also heavily invested in Amazon Game Studios.
• Google has YouTube where gaming creators rank near the top of popularity and Android must be one of the most popular gaming platforms. They say they have over 2 billion monthly active players there.

Sort of seems like if you are a big enough tech or information platform, gaming will come calling. If this is the case, the big next one to look out for is the AI providers. What will their version of games look like? Character.ai for all?