We are at Gamescom in Germany.
This is one of the biggest
video game fairs in the world.
The video game industry is huge.
65% of households in the United States
have one or more people
who play three hours, at least,
of video games per week.
And there are an estimated
34 million active gamers
just here in Germany.
That’s about half the population
above the age of 14.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
is getting into it herself.
But for a lot of people here
it’s not just fun and games.
It’s actually a full-time job.
We are on a quest to find people
who are playing video games for a living.
This honestly feels like an amusement park,
not a trade fair.
Okay, so,
we’ve made our way to Xbox.
This is a business
that’s been around the industry
for quite a while now.
I actually started at Microsoft in 1998.
The first game that I worked on
was Age of Empires.
And when we started the Xbox program
at Microsoft I kind of leapt toward that.
I’ve been working on Xbox now
since the Xbox 360 days.
I’m really designing something
that I would love to use every day.
The average job in the U.S. gaming industry
paid a salary of $97,000 per year in 2016.
You don’t even have to be an engineer
to make good money in gaming.
Programmers, artists, musicians,
it takes all kinds to do games.
We found Carlos Paton
who is the product manager
for Thunderobot in Europe,
which makes gaming products
like laptops and virtual reality sets.
This is a prototype now.
Carlos has been gaming since he was little
and now gets to play and test games
as part of his job.
When I have a little bit of free time,
what I really love to do is play games.
A lot of the gaming industry
is built around major franchises
like Star Wars or Super Mario.
How’s it going Mario?
Gaming jobs have come a long way
from the days of arcades and consoles.
We found a lot of businesses
focused on casual gaming…
So I want to get the gold?
Which are games less experienced players
can download on their phones
or web browsers.
The popularity of casual gaming
has opened up new jobs in the industry…
Lose!
But it’s still not for everyone.
Clearly I’m not quitting my job
to do this anytime soon.