Power of Play 2025 w/ ESA’s President: What the Data Really Says

0:14Yo,

0:20what the deal be everybody in Bracago. This is the Spawn Me Podcast with Kalief Adams. I'm your host, Kalief Adams. Hope you're doing well. Having a wonderful rest of your week. We have got two really, really good episodes this week on the feeds. This one, we'll be talking to our friends over at the ESA to talk about their Power of Play report that they shared over the past week, where we had a lot of folks who were a little bit upset about some of the results from that report. But I have to say, it was really, really cool to be able to sit down with our friends over at ESA and talk to them again about how they're looking at the future of the space, how they're kind of tracking where we are as an industry and how we're tracking how not only players but developers are kind of connecting to that work.

1:07I think that's always really good to be able to get some good focus about where we are as an industry and as players in those ways. We have a bunch of stuff on the feed. Go check out our reviews. We've been doing a ton of them. you know we got a ninja gaiden one we had a battlefield one we had some battlefield one season one content videos go up this week over some dope stuff that was uh around the space as well um so we're we're gonna jump into it uh not gonna hold you but please make sure you're going and checking out the show go subscribe on apple podcast this month specific specifically in november spotify is going to be the place going to ask a lot of people to consume the show because we're trying to get monetized on spotify so we're going to try to see if we can make and find some good ways to use that as a place to help us grow in Bricago with the work that we do.

1:57So without further ado, go check out the interview right about now. What's good, everybody in Bricago? We have a very, very special guest on the show. Today, returning champion, coming back to Bricago, Stanley Pierre-Louis, the president and CEO of the ESA. Stanley, so excited to have you back on the show. So hyped to have you here to talk about the Power Play Report and all the good things that you are working on at the ESA. How are you doing, Sam? Listen, it's such a privilege to be on your platform, given the respect that you have within the video game community and beyond. And given how passionate you are about this topic, this area, and our entertainment field, right, about what games mean and represent.

2:45So it's really a privilege for us to be on your platform. So thank you for hosting this. Oh, no, I mean, it is my pleasure. I get a chance to hang out with one of the best in the business and get a chance to hang out with somebody who I admire very, very deeply. It was great to see you at the Games for Change Awards and the Games for Change conference. You crushed it in your panel. That was great. You did a fantastic job, as usual. But I think of the folks at home who may not necessarily know what you and the ESA do. I want to want to reintroduce you to that conversation and give you the floor to talk about what you're, you know, some of your work and how you and ESA are helping the gaming industry.

3:26No, thanks for that. Thanks for that. You know, so we're excited about what we do because we represent the video game industry. So in 1994, in the midst of a lot of concern about the impact of games, the industry came together and formed what the ESA is today to be able to say, how do we showcase what we do best? And how do we ensure that policymakers understand the impact that games have? They also formed at the same time the ESRB, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, that comes up with the ratings that everyone knows now and understands as a complement to that formation of an organization to advance its interests in terms of advocacy.

4:07And so we spent a lot of our time advocating for industry writ large and acting as a voice and advocate in the halls of Congress, in the White House, sometimes in the courts, but also in the states. And we also partner with organizations around the world that are looking to advance interactive entertainment in their local jurisdictions. So we spend a lot of our time most days really thinking about how do we position the industry for more growth and more opportunity and for people to understand what we do. If you go to our website, you'll see all the issues that we can get into about what's a priority for us.

4:45But we spend a lot of our time really thinking about how do we ensure that we understand what's happening in the industry and making sure that it gets conveyed to those who are making lots of decisions. People also know us for having run E3 for so many years. Yes. And so and we're looking forward to our new show icon in the spring. That's a different twist on how to convene the industry. So it's less about retail engagement and sales and more about thought leadership because our industry is now a thought leader. And we may not think of it that way, but the kind of advances we're making in technology, the way that we're creating storyline, the fact that those stories are now being translated into other mediums, whether it's streaming, television and film and beyond.

5:28We're in that we're in that leadership pole position and we need to act like it. We need to demonstrate it. We need to convene people to understand the power that we have and how we're integrated into so much. So I think we're thinking about the future as well and how we can continue not only serve as a voice, but a light and shining that light on what the industry is doing so well. Yeah, I appreciate that because it is it is a harder job now than it has ever been to a certain extent. I think we are now moving into really important stages of now our industry is the biggest entertainment industry on the planet.

6:02We are continuing to find good ways to bridge the gap, not only from a entertainment story perspective, from a from a job creation perspective, from a industry face, you know, forward facing industry that's looking at so many different technologies that are kind of coming into the space in terms of, you know, the people part of it, the AI part of it. All of those things are coalescing in so many different ways. And it's been really cool to kind of go back and go look at some of the work that you all have been doing and some of the initiatives you've been putting forth on the website to talk about what have been the kind of priorities for this year kind of moving forward.

6:42I'd love to hear you talk about, you know, what's the kind of like slate of priorities that you all are digging into for this year and thinking about the upcoming thoughts about the future? Yeah. So in a general sense, like we're we're one of the most like innovative kind of not just industries, but policy industries to have out there because we are both IP and tech. So we care about protecting the works that get created that people get to enjoy. But we also care about protecting the ways people play, because we make a lot of the products people play to play those games on. And so we care about any issue that's within that realm.

7:20So that typically involves anything from intellectual property protection, trade and patents, all those things, to the tech side where we concern ourselves with making sure that we have trust and safety protocols that help people's privacy, helps online safety and all those things. You know, obviously this year, one of the biggest stories has been the role of international trade. You know, we saw tariffs announced very early with the presidency. And so that's impacted how you price things. Right. And so that's impacted the industry in terms of sales of devices. You've also seen this is related to trade, which is immigration announcements around how the industry hires and brings people into the workforce, both from the United States and from around the world.

8:11And so with the announcement of the H-1B program being affected impacts our industry because we're a global industry. We make games in the U.S. and around the world, but we also bring people into the U.S. to make games because we're the largest exporter of games. And so because of that, we want to make sure that we're making games here in the U.S. as much as possible. But when there are challenges posed around it, you know, we leverage what we can in other jurisdictions because we want to make sure we make the best games by the best developers possible. And so those have been kind of the two big issues that people probably read about.

8:48But within Congress and throughout the states, there have been a lot of concerns about what's going on in the online space, whether it's social media, the use of AI. And so a lot of the bills that are being proposed around the country have focused on the impact of the online space. And what we've been doing is demonstrating to policymakers why we're different. You know, playing a video game and talking to someone is different than being on social media. The impetus is different. The reasons for wanting to play, the way you connect with people. You know, even if some of that is available to the public, you're not doing it for likes.

9:22You're doing it because you're part of a co-op or a campaign or because you want to get together with friends and play the game. So we've been really trying to put a light on why games are different than other vehicles for electronic entertainment. And so far it's resonated, but we have to continue that fight. And so there are a lot of concerns people have, particularly parents, around what's going on in social media. And we're trying to highlight that in the games world, we're different because we've cared about this from the jump. And we have not only the SRB, but all the companies who have trust and safety protocols, whether it's human interaction, use of technology, trying to figure out can AI be an assistant on this to help identify what behavior might not be palatable online.

10:10You see the industry really trying to work and do that. And what we say to policymakers is we don't always get it 100 % right, but we need to get it right more often than not, because that's what keeps players wanting to be in the space. People don't want to be in an unsafe space. So our goal is so high because we know that that's what keeps people wanting to come back is enjoying the game, but feeling like it's a fun place to be. I love to hear you talk about it in that way, because I feel like right now we're in this really interesting space where we're not only seeing toxicity levels kind of raised in the social media space, which dovetail into pieces of the game space.

10:50Like I when I'm speaking to folks about a lot of the work that I do in a community management side and social media side of, you know, handling accounts and things like that. You know, I get the question often from friends and especially moms and dads who ask me a lot because I am their reticent reticent person who's like, I don't want to be the expert on this topic right now. I just want to eat dinner. But it's like, Khalif, how does how does this work and how does all this stuff kind of get together? and it feels like there's this energy now that's coming from multiple angles of the kind of human existence where you know the same folks who were on those social media platforms who may be as toxic and may be saying terrible things are also players in in games as well like we are all a part of a grand society and all of those pieces all fit together how are you kind of leveraging the the good works that you all are doing.

11:46And we'll definitely want to talk about the Power of Play report because I think there are some good nuggets there that speak to all of this. How are you speaking to folks who are not necessarily in our spaces, who understand the value of the game space? We're kind of in this almost Jack Thompson-esque regression of the way we've been talking about games and what they can value and what they bring to people. How are you all talking to folks who are in the Beltway, who are having those discussions, who may not necessarily be as learned as we are about the positive aspects of what gaming can bring?

12:24One of the things I have found for people, policymaker or not, is tapping into their own human experience. So I was talking to this senator who was in his 60s and, you know, we're at an event. We're starting to talk about who we represent. And he immediately went into, oh, video games. Oh, boy. Right. I just went into all the tropes. And I said, let me flip it on him. Does anyone in your life play games? And he went on to recount that, well, you know, every night my wife plays Candy Crush before she goes to bed just to calm down. And I'm an old fighter pilot. And so I like to get on my Xbox simulator and just fly around and just and he kind of caught himself and went, I guess I'm a gamer.

13:06I said, I don't put labels on it. I don't put labels on it. I just I'm just asking you what your, you know, engagement. It could have been my grandkids play or my kids like this or it could have been nothing. Yeah. But he had a real life experience that caught him in his own tracks. And so I found that because, you know, two thirds of people in the U.S. are playing games in some way, shape or form every week, I can tap into something that's very personal to you or your family or your close friends that will humanize games. And then we can have a real conversation about the impact that games have, because now you're visualizing it in your own context instead of someone giving you bullet points.

13:48What we aim to do with all the facts that we put out there is we want to democratize the information and make everyone an advocate for games. So whether you're at a Senate hearing or a PTA meeting, you are prepared with a few nuggets that people can relate to and be able to identify what that means. And so the next level is being able to really give people data that they just wouldn't ordinarily understand and to rethink it. So I was on a plane recently, had my switch to, you know, in my, you know, get ready, pull it out. And this young man sees me opening up. He's getting excited. And his dad's like, you don't want that.

14:21It's not good for your brain. Right. That's an opportunity for my sermon. To be able to say, well, you know, you know, and we have this in our yearly reports. We have this in the Power Play Report about the fact that playing video games just stimulates your mind more than reading in movies. I love reading in movies and music. I do all those things. There's a different interaction you have with interactive entertainment. And it engages you more. It builds different strengths. And when I gave him my two to three minute elevator pitch and went back down, he was a little puzzled. And I then leaned over and said, and you may want to get him one for the top of the box.

14:59Particularly the coast to coast. And I love the fact that with the modern devices, and I don't have my Xbox ally yet, but I'm going to get one, that you can now power it on planes. Remember the old 3DS and the PS? You need two to make a cross-country flight, right? So now you can keep it charged and keep it going. And so just using every opportunity just to remind people of these human facts that they live and then the data can help support those things. But I had just found that tapping into the personal experience opens up a new avenue of conversation, helps direct it to something that's more important to them than, you know, here are 15 facts that you might know about Italy.

15:46Italy is great, by the way. It was amazing. It was amazing. And we'll get to some interesting things about their video game population playing. But I love the fact that there's a human experience that pretty much everyone will have. If two thirds of people in the U.S. and a third of the people around the world are playing video games, there is something associated with games in your life that resonates. It boggles me that we still have this stigma in the space about what gaming can do for folks and what it means to not only our industry, but to culture and to all of those things. Gaming continues to be a vessel for good for a lot of different ways.

16:28What is it that you think is still kind of that barrier for getting that messaging out to people? It feels like you and I know it. Anyone who picks up a controller understands it. When you see a young kid get it for the first time and they get that gleam in their eye and they're like, oh, my goodness, I did a thing and accomplished something. They got that moment. Is there is there something that it's like blocking that in your mind that we need to kind of focus on to help kind of get the messaging out? You know, we had, you know, whatever people think about Jimmy Fallon's gaming segments and Conan's old gaming segments that he had when he was on TV.

17:04I think they were OK, but they could have used some real finessing. I don't think they showcased us in the best ways. But what's that thing that you're thinking right now is a thing that we can use to drive this messaging in a better way for everyone to kind of get that stigma off of off the albatross across our necks? Well, I think one of the things we have to give ourselves grace on is the benefit of time that others have had. Right. So we're a younger industry than a lot of the other media industries. And they've also been showcasing themselves in very specific and powerful ways. Whether Hollywood has a great year or not, financially or from an artistic standpoint, you always have the Oscars and awards season.

17:49And their behind-the-scenes is very tangible. When I go behind the scenes of a movie set, I know what that looks like. Going behind the scenes of game-making is very different. right? It's, it's people coding and people, you know, there's some things that lend themselves well to the visual arts, like, you know, mocap studios and those kinds of things. But, but watching someone sit down and code is very different. Like maybe when they're debugging or something like that, it might be more interesting. Certainly the voice actors and having, you know, all those things happen. But I think, I think part of it is the medium and how it gets made.

18:27But I think the vehicle behind promoting some of these other endeavors has just been around much longer. You know, we're, you know, our, you know, video games in a kind of a ubiquitous sense is probably, you know, 70 years old, you know, like, you know, I mean, so it's, so it's younger. And then for a large part of that time, we either didn't get a lot of attention, because it was still a growing industry, or we were getting negative attention, right. And even I would argue, you know, ESA was founded in 1994 to address a congressional threat. You know, 2011 is when we won our Supreme Court case that said you can't regulate games the way that California wanted to regulate them.

19:11Right. And by Justice Scalia, one of the most conservative justices ever on the court saying video games are not a danger. Right. I've seen scarier things in the Brothers Grimm books than in a video game. Right. True. So, you know, once you get that kind of cosine, OK, that's 2011. Right. And then we still we're working on developing what that new persona look like, probably for another five, six years as people were still, you know, starting to normalize what games really means in our lives. So if you look at the kind of arc of time, we're just in a place where you do have some tropes that continue, but the everyday is different, right?

19:52The everyday of what people think is starting to change. You also have a younger generation of people who've been playing, as we've seen, they're getting older now. And their relationship with games is very different. In fact, what's really interesting, maybe not in this data specifically, but as you talk to people anecdotally, there was an era of people who said, I'm a gamer. like maybe up to like eight, 10 years ago. Today's Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they're DJ, writer, artist, gamer, you know, entrepreneur. It's just part of what they do. And so it's gone from, you know, gaming as a threat or something of concern to, oh, okay, I play games.

20:30I'm a gamer to, yeah, and, right. And so I think that generational shift is also going to change how people perceive it. So I think the benefit of time helps both in terms of more longevity in the space where people see that we're producing and in the people who play and continuously play and can sniff out when someone's lifting up a trope about games or not. I mean, you find now when something bad happens in the world and people blame games, it doesn't really stick as much as it used to. That's true. That is, that's a good point. I think, I think it was a moment. There was a, and again, we've been in the space forward most of the time that gaming has been a thing right so it winds up being that discussion of like what have we seen also as the the through lines that have changed culturally that that make a lot of sense and i do want to dig into some of the numbers because i think that also reflects really well against the discussion point that you just talked there because i think you know we're seeing now the numbers have changed a lot right the the median age the average age of video game players is now in the 40s and i remember when i was creeping up into like late 30s and now it is has has crossed the 40 year old threshold and you know i use this is it coming directly from the power play uh report uh and you know you had almost 25 000 people respond to uh the surveys that you had put up and i think some of these numbers we're going to go through some of the slides because i think they're really important and talk to to me about like What were some of the things that kind of stood out for you when getting these reports back and seeing like, oh, here's where we're getting some really good data to kind of like build the case for why video games are doing what they're doing?

22:19You know, the interesting thing for me was, you know, we had done this, you know, every year in the U.S. Just looking at our numbers, how it impacts Americans and looking at the ages. And over the past few years, and I know we highlighted this past year, just how many older Americans are playing games. Yeah. And we've seen the average age in the U.S. kind of creep up to now to the mid-30s. 36, I think, is our most recent study for the U.S. only. And so we'd seen this happening. And the number of people 80 and older playing had gone up from 30 % to 36 % in the U.S. So we'd seen some trends here that were of interest.

23:00And we thought, oh, it's the U.S. We're a well-connected society. COVID probably had an impact on how and when people play. So partnering with our colleagues, we did a study two years ago with a smaller sample site, fewer countries. We wanted to see, like, what's the global story? Yeah. And so I think that was part of what we wanted to understand. So going to 21 countries, going to the Middle East, to Africa, all over Asia, Australia, as well as all over North and South America. So it gave us a better understanding of what we have in common and what might be slightly different. I mean, the thing I think the trend of older is interesting.

23:34China, I think, had the youngest average age of about 32. Italy was 50. Right. So that's an interesting thing. So if you're in Italy, the average, you know, the average age is 50. That tells you something different about that population and where they play and who has connectivity and what they do with their time. So it's it's really interesting to kind of see some of those differences. But we also found that some of the reasons people play are universal. Number one is fun. If you're not having fun, you're not going to play the game. But people just found it reduces stress. It increases mental stimulation, particularly for older players who view gaming as a great way to stimulate their minds and keep sharp.

24:14So I think we just saw just the vast similarities we have. The fact that about half of people who play games are women. and it's something that still surprises people even though it's been a consistent figure for us for some time but people don't think of it that way but if you think of how people play particularly the fact that the number one device people play games on is mobile then it opens up a lot of opportunities for people to play anytime anywhere we were we were in italy a few months back actually it was about a year ago meeting with some government officials in collaboration with our Italian counterpart.

24:51And we shared the story of where we saw demographics going. And one of the senior people in the room thought it was strange. And I threw out an example of, oh, let's say you're in a waiting room and it snapped. I just brought my mom to a waiting room. She's in her 80s and she pulled out her phone. And so that's what I mean is sometimes you have to connect it to something in the real world for them, for this data to start to make sense. Then everything after that completely made sense. I was at a meeting at the White House with a group of officials, and we decided, let's start the meeting out instead of just doing introductions and here's where I am here to represent.

25:27Let's just, as part of introduction, share a video game memory. And that changed the tenor of the room because almost everyone had a very deep personal experience. Because when I say what's your favorite sports memory, you may have watched it on television or you may have been in the stands even. But when I say your video game memory, you were holding a joystick. You were holding a controller. You were actively engaged in this thing. And you were with a cousin or your sibling or you were competing against someone on your Atari 2600. It just floods you back to a place. So I think that's what's been critically important is seeing the commonality around the world of how games really do have this universal tie, no matter what your age, no matter what your region of the world.

26:16I think what keeps coming back to me after going through the study and going through the details and pulling out things I thought were really important. Again, it goes back and reflects that conversation of like when we think about the medium, we kind of do it a disservice by not talking about the benefits that it brings to people. You know, conversations around mental stimulation and stress relief and all of those things, for me, are the reasons why I game now. Yes, fun, again, is the main driver for all of it. Having new experiences. I love the I'm a technophile. So being able to see technology continue to grow at light speed and continuing to find new versions of stories and experiences that I get a chance to partake in are parts of the reasons why I love it.

27:10But it's great to be able to see that that is not just the thing that is here in the U.S., that that is a global understanding and a global connection point that we all have. I guess the thing the thing that I always go back to is this understanding that, like, we are more similar than we are not. And the beauty of games is that we get a chance to be in a space where that is profound and shared and experienced in real time. Like I am literally playing with people who are across the world for me in whatever their circumstances may be. And I love the fact that you've kind of reflected that in in some of the slides and some of the pieces here.

27:50And you talked about, you know, the create creativity part, too, which I think is also really important. Again, my slides are a little bit small. So if you really want to go check out the numbers, go look at the go to the ESA site and go pull it in. We'll have a link in the description for the video and for the for the podcast. but it also gives me another avenue to rethink about the conversation around gender which i think is really important because i think we have this thing within and it's again i don't know if this is just a u.s thing i don't know if this is also a global field i do get when i get marked at on the internet from people about various things i do wind up getting a lot of people who will see that number that we had and i'll pull it out really quick this is the version of the u.s numbers right these are different based on region and they vastly change uh but they're pretty close across the board in terms of the split between men and women who are playing we still kind of bastardize the idea that mobile is a reasonable space to call a space for gaming how how do we get past that part like in your in your mind and when you're talking to constituents and talking to folks across the board from developers to companies to to publishers to all those folks in that mix how are they thinking about the way that that split has has kind of really bubbled up and has really become more profound and what does that mean kind of moving forward for our industry because I think a lot of people still are thinking about us in semi-archaic ways.