《经济学人》双语：各行各业都将游戏化？

原文标题：
Video game
Storm forming
As gaming grows, it is eating the media
视频游戏
风暴形成
随着游戏业的发展，它正在侵蚀媒体业

The games business has lessons for other industries and for governments
游戏业为其他行业和政府提供了启示

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WARNER BROS released a new Harry Potter title last month and took $850m in two weeks.
华纳兄弟上个月发布了一款新的《哈利波特》游戏，两周内创收8.5亿美元。

That made it the second-most-successful Potter launch in the film studio’s history.
这使得它成为该电影公司历史上第二成功的哈利波特系列作品。

But “Hogwarts Legacy”, the title in question, was no movie: it was a video game.

但作品《霍格沃茨的遗产》不是一部电影，而是一款视频游戏。

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Warner’s hit is an example of how gaming is besting older media, both as a business and as a way for people to entertain themselves.

华纳兄弟的成功是游戏在商业上和娱乐方式上超越传统媒体的一个例子。

Consumers are forecast to spend $185bn on games this year, five times what they will spend at the cinema and 70% more than they will allocate to streamers like Netflix.

预计今年消费者将在游戏上花费1850亿美元，是电影支出的5倍，比用在网飞等流媒体平台上的支出多70%。

Once a children’s hobby, gaming has grown up. Console players in their 30s and 40s now outnumber those in their teens and 20s.
游戏曾经是孩子们的爱好，现在是成年人的爱好。如今30多岁和40多岁的游戏机玩家比10多岁和20多岁的玩家数量多。

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Yet as gaming matures, it is not just rivalling other media. Rather like a ravenous Pac-Man, it is gobbling them up.

然而，随着游戏业发展成熟，它不仅与其他媒体是竞争关系，而像贪吃蛇一样，游戏业正在吞并其他媒体。

While such intellectual property as Harry Potter may be finding success in game form, game franchises have themselves become the most in-demand kind of IP in other media.

虽然像《哈利波特》这样的知识产权可能在游戏形式中取得成功，但游戏特许经营权本身已成为其他媒体中最受欢迎的IP类型。

Apple’s “Tetris” movie, due out later this month, is the latest (and perhaps oddest) instance of Hollywood mining games for ideas as audiences tire of comic-book heroes.

苹果公司即将于本月底推出《俄罗斯方块》电影，这是好莱坞从游戏中汲取创意的最新（也许是最奇怪的）例子，因为观众厌倦了漫画英雄。

Amateur creators are doing the same. After music, gaming clips are the biggest content category on YouTube.

副业创作者也在做同样的事情。仅次于音乐类别，游戏剪辑是油管上第二大的内容类别。

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At the same time, audiences are increasingly consuming old media through games.
同时，观众们越来越多地通过游戏消费传统媒体。

The latest season of “The Walking Dead”, a long-running television drama, took the form of an interactive game on Facebook. Musicians such as Ariana Grande perform concerts in “Fortnite”.
长篇电视剧《行尸走肉》最新一季采用了在脸书上的互动游戏形式。爱莉安娜·格兰德等音乐人在《堡垒之夜》中开演唱会。

The fitness video is giving way to the fitness game. Even social networking is partly migrating to the gaming arena.
健身视频正逐渐被健身游戏取代。甚至有部分社交网络也迁移到了游戏领域。

Platforms like Roblox provide children with a place to play—but also to hang out, chat and shop.
Roblox等平台不仅为孩子们提供玩耍的地方，也成为了聊天和购物的场所。

In so far as anything resembling a metaverse yet exists, it exists in games.
就目前而言，如果说有任何类似元宇宙的存在，那么它一定存在于游戏中。

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Expect more growth. Smartphones put a powerful console in people’s pockets and unlocked hours of playtime on the commute and at the back of the lecture hall.
预计游戏业还会有更多增长。智能手机里的游戏直接装在人们的口袋里，通勤时和教室里都可以玩游戏。

The next boost may come from smart TVs and streaming, which bring high-fidelity games to living rooms without the need for dedicated hardware.
下一个增长可能来自智能电视和流媒体，它们将高保真游戏带到客厅，且无需专门的硬件设备。

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New business models are another source of growth.
游戏的新商业模式是另一种增长来源。

Gaming’s latest boom was propelled by free-to-play games, which suck users in before monetising them with ads and in-game purchases.
免费畅玩游戏吸引更多用户，推动了游戏的最新热潮，然后再通过广告和游戏内购买装备获取利润。

A new phase of expansion is coming from game-library subscriptions, which already show signs of increasing consumption and accelerating discovery, much as the cable bundle did in television.
新的扩展阶段来自于游戏库订阅，已经显示出消费和发现加速的迹象，就像有线捆绑计划一样在电视上发挥作用。

These new distribution mechanisms and business models promise more choice for consumers—which is why regulators should allow Microsoft’s $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a big gamemaker whose titles Microsoft would make available for streaming and subscription.
这些新的分销机制和商业模式为消费者提供了更多选择，这就是为什么监管机构应该允许微软以690亿美元的价格收购大型游戏制造商“动视暴雪”，这样它的游戏就可以在微软流媒体和订阅服务中出现。

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All this holds lessons for other industries—chiefly that, if you are in media, you need to be in gaming.
以上这一切都给其他行业带来了启示，即如果你从事媒体行业，你需要参与游戏行业。

Apple and Netflix are scrambling to complement their streaming offerings with games.
苹果和网飞正在竭尽全力通过游戏来补充它们的流媒体业务。

Others are already there. In August Sony Pictures will release “Gran Turismo”, a film based on a Sony game which features songs by artists from Sony Music.
其他公司已经进入了这个领域。今年8月，索尼影业将有一部电影《头号赛车手》上映，这部电影是基于一个由索尼开发的游戏，其中包含来自索尼音乐的歌曲。

Media firms that ignore gaming risk being like those that decided in the 1950s to sit out the TV craze.
忽视游戏行业的媒体公司，会像那些在 1950 年代对电视热潮袖手旁观的公司一样，面临出局的风险。

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Governments should also pay attention. Their main concern so far has been whether games rot young minds (almost certainly not, especially if playing diverts them from social media).
政府也应该关注到这一点。到目前为止，他们的主要关注点是游戏是否会腐蚀年轻人的思想（几乎可以肯定地说“不会”，尤其是如果游戏能分散他们的注意力，让他们远离社交媒体时）。

As gaming grows, bigger questions loom. Film and television, the engines of popular culture in the 20th century, are dominated by Hollywood. The contest in new media is more open.
随着游戏的发展，更大的问题浮出水面。20世纪流行文化的引擎是由好莱坞主导的影视业。新媒体领域的竞争会更加开放。

Western governments are waking up to the implications of the world’s hottest social-media app, TikTok.
西方政府开始意识到全球最热门的社交媒体应用TikTok所带来的影响。

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When video games were just electronic toys, this might not have mattered.
当视频游戏只是电子玩具时，这可能无关紧要。

But as games expand and spill into other formats, it is becoming clear that whoever dominates gaming is going to wield clout in every form of communication.
但随着游戏的扩展和涉及到其他格式，显然是谁掌握了游戏，谁就能在各种形式的交流中发挥影响力。

In every sense, the future of the media is in play.
从各个方面来看，媒体的未来都在游戏中。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量707左右）
原文出自：2023年3月25日《The Economist》Leaders版块。

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

VIP群本文翻译整理: Irene本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
《霍格沃茨的遗产》Hogwarts Legacy是一款即将推出的电子游戏，由Avalanche Software开发，由华纳兄弟发行。这个游戏基于J.K.罗琳的小说《哈利波特》系列，将在同名学校霍格沃茨魔法学校中展开。

贪吃蛇Pac-Man是一款经典的街机游戏，由日本游戏公司Namco于1980年发行。在游戏中，玩家通过控制一个圆形角色Pac-Man在迷宫中吃掉所有的小点，同时避免四个鬼魂的追击。游戏非常流行，成为了80年代最知名的游戏之一。

俄罗斯方块Tetris是一款经典的俄罗斯方块拼图游戏，最初于1984年由苏联设计师阿列克谢·帕基特诺夫创建。游戏中，玩家需要使用不同形状的方块组成完整的行，当一行完全被填满时，该行会消失并为新方块腾出空间。随着时间的推移，方块的下落速度会不断加快，直到无法继续游戏为止。

【重点句子】（4 个）
Yet as gaming matures, it is not just rivalling other media. Rather like a ravenous Pac-Man, it is gobbling them up.
然而，随着游戏业发展成熟，它不仅与其他媒体是竞争关系，而像贪吃蛇一样，游戏业正在吞并其他媒体。

In so far as anything resembling a metaverse yet exists, it exists in games.
就目前而言，如果说有任何类似元宇宙的存在，那么它一定存在于游戏中。

Gaming’s latest boom was propelled by free-to-play games, which suck users in before monetising them with ads and in-game purchases.
免费畅玩游戏吸引更多用户，推动了游戏的最新热潮，然后再通过广告和游戏内购买装备获取利润。

Media firms that ignore gaming risk being like those that decided in the 1950s to sit out the TV craze.
忽视游戏行业的媒体公司，会像那些在 1950 年代对电视热潮袖手旁观的公司一样，面临出局的风险。