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Video game industry

The video game industry is the tertiary and quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the development, marketing, distribution, monetization and consumer feedback of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide.

The video game industry has grown from niche to mainstream. , video games generated US$134.9 billion annually in global sales. In the US, the industry earned about US$9.5 billion in 2007, US$11.7 billion in 2008, and US$25.1 billion 2010, according to the ESA annual report. Research from Ampere Analysis indicated three points: the sector has consistently grown since at least 2015 and expanded 26% from 2019 to 2021, to a record US$191 billion; the global games and services market is forecast to shrink 1.2% annually to US$188 billion in 2022; the industry is not recession-proof.

The industry has influenced the technological advancement of personal computers through sound cards, graphics cards and 3D graphic accelerators, CPUs, and co-processors like PhysX. Sound cards, for example, were originally developed for games and then improved for adoptation by the music industry.

Size
In 2017 in the United States, which represented about a third of the global video game market, the Entertainment Software Association estimated that there were over 2,300 development companies and over 525 publishing companies, including in hardware and software manufacturing, service providers, and distributors. These companies in total have nearly 66,000 direct employees. When including indirect employment, such as a developer using the services of a graphics design package from a different firm, the total number of employees involved in the video game industry rises above 220,000.

Value chain
Traditionally, the video game industry has had six connected layers in its value chain based on the retail distribution of games:
 * 1) Game development, representing programmers, designers, and artists, and their leadership, with support of middleware and other development tools.
 * 2) Publishing, which typically includes both the source of funding the development of a video game, as well as providing the marketing and advertising for a game.
 * 3) Distribution, whether through retail or digital channels. Distribution typically includes manufacturing and duplication of game media and packaging for retail games.
 * 4) Retailer, storefront where the game is sold.
 * 5) Consumers, the purchasers and players of video games
 * 6) Hardware platform manufacturers, which can own and place limitations for content on the platform they have made, charging license fees to developers or publishers.

As games have transitioned from the retail to more digital market, parts of this value chain have become redundant. For example, the distributor may be redundant as a function of either the publisher or the retailer, or even in some cases as the case of indie games, the function of the developer themselves.

Roles
Ben Sawyer of Digitalmill observes that the development side of the industry is made up of six connected and distinctive layers:
 * 1) Capital and publishing layer: involved in paying for development of new games and seeking returns through licensing of the properties.
 * 2) Product and talent layer: includes developers, designers and artists, who may be working under individual contracts or as part of in-house development teams.
 * 3) Production and tools layer: generates content production tools, game development middleware, customizable game engines, and production management tools.
 * 4) Distribution layer: or the "publishing" industry, involved in generating and marketing catalogs of games for retail and online distribution.
 * 5) Hardware (or Virtual Machine or Software Platform) layer: or the providers of the underlying platform, which may be console-based, accessed through online media, or accessed through mobile devices such as smartphones. This layer includes network infrastructure and non-hardware platforms such as virtual machines (such as Java or Flash), or software platforms such as browsers or Facebook.
 * 6) End-users layer: or the players of the games.

The game industry employs those experienced in other traditional businesses, but some have experience tailored to the game industry. Some of the disciplines specific to the game industry include: game programmer, game designer, level designer, game producer, game artist, and game tester. Most of these professionals are employed by video game developers or video game publishers. However, many hobbyists also produce computer games and sell them commercially. Game developers and publishers sometimes employ those with extensive or long-term experience within the modding communities.

1940s–1960s
Prior to the 1970s, there was no significant commercial aspect of the video game industry, but many advances in computing would set the stage for the birth of the industry.

Many early publicly available interactive computer-based game machines used or other mechanisms to mimic a display; while technically not "video games", they had elements of interactivity between the player and the machine. Some examples of these included the 1940 "Nimatron", an electromagnetic relay-based Nim-playing device designed by Edward Condon and built by Westinghouse Electric for the New York World's Fair, Bertie the Brain, an arcade game of tic-tac-toe, built by Josef Kates for the 1950 Canadian National Exhibition, and Nimrod created by engineering firm Ferranti for the 1951 Festival of Britain.

The development of cathode ray tube, the core technology inside televisions, created several of the first true video games. In 1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a patent for a "cathode ray tube amusement device". Their game, which uses a cathode ray tube hooked to an oscilloscope display, challenges players to fire a gun at target.

Between the 1950s and 1960s, with mainframe computers becoming available to campus colleges, students and others started to develop games that could be played at terminals that accessed the mainframe. One of the first known examples is Spacewar!, developed by Harvard and MIT employees Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen. The introduction of easy-to-program languages like BASIC for mainframes allowed for more simplistic games to be developed.

The arcade video game industry grew out of the pre-existing arcade game industry, which was previously dominated by electro-mechanical games (EM games). Following the arrival of Sega's EM game Periscope (1966), the arcade industry was experiencing a "technological renaissance" driven by "audio-visual" EM novelty games, establishing the arcades as a healthy environment for the introduction of commercial video games in the early 1970s. In the late 1960s, a college student named Nolan Bushnell had a part-time job at an arcade where he became familiar with EM games such as Chicago Coin's racing game Speedway (1969), watching customers play and helping to maintain the machinery, while learning how it worked and developing his understanding of how the game business operates.

1970s

In 1971, the first commercial arcade video game, Computer Space, was released. The following year, Atari, Inc. released the first commercially successful video game, Pong, and 19,000 arcade cabinets of the original arcade version were sold. In that year, video games were introduced to the home market with the release of the early video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. However, both the arcade and home markets would be dominated by Pong clones, which flooded the market and led to the video game crash of 1977. The crash eventually came to an end with the success of Taito's Space Invaders, released in 1978, inspiring the golden age of video arcade games. The game's success prompted the prevalence of arcade machines in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants, and convenience stores during the golden age. More than 360,000 Space Invaders arcade cabinets were sold worldwide, and by 1982, generated a revenue of US$2 billion (equivalent to $ in ) in quarters.

Space Invaders was soon licensed for the Atari VCS (later known as Atari 2600), becoming the first "killer app" and quadrupling the console's sales. The success of the Atari 2600 in turn revived the home video game market during the second generation of consoles, until the video game crash of 1983. By the end of the 1970s, the personal computer game industry began forming from a hobby culture.

1980s

In the early 1980s, the golden age of video arcade games reached its zenith. The total sales of arcade video game machines in North America increased significantly during this period, from $50 million in 1978 to $900 million by 1981, with the arcade video game industry's revenue in North America tripling to $2.8 billion in 1980. By 1981, the arcade video game industry was generating an annual North American revenue of US$5 billion (equivalent to $ in ). In 1982, the arcade video game industry reached its peak, generating $8 billion in quarters, surpassing the annual gross revenue of both pop music ($4 billion) and Hollywood films ($3 billion) combined. This was also nearly twice as much as the $3.8 billion generated by the home video game industry that year; both the arcade and home video game markets combined in 1982 total of US$11.8 billion (equivalent to $ in ). The arcade video game industry would continue to generate an annual revenue of $5 billion in quarters through to 1985. The most successful game of this era was Namco's Pac-Man, released in 1980, of which more than 350,000 cabinets were eventually sold, and within a year, collected more than $1 billion in quarters; in total, Pac-Man is estimated to have grossed over 10 billion quarters ($2.5 billion) during the 20th century.

In the early 1980s, 8-bit home computing and home-made games boomed. This was especially in Europe (with the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64) and in Asia (with the NEC PC-88 and MSX). Video game journalism arose at that time, which was later expanded to include covermounted cassettes and CDs. In 1983, the North American industry crashed due to the production of too many badly developed games (quantity over quality), resulting in the fall of the North American industry. The industry would eventually be revitalized by the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which resulted in the home console market being dominated by Japanese companies such as Nintendo, while a professional European video game industry also began taking shape with companies such as Ocean Software and Gremlin Interactive. In 1987, Nintendo lost a legal challenge against Blockbuster Entertainment, which continued game rentals in the same way as movies. In 1989, the Game Boy handheld system was launched.

Video games transitioned from having been showcased at general trade shows like Consumer Electronics Show, to dedicated shows like Nintendo Space World and Electronic Entertainment Expo.

1990s

Game related technology advances of the 1990s include these:

 * The "3D Revolution" where 3D polygon graphics became the de facto standard for video game visual presentation, initially in the arcades during the early 1990s, and then on home systems with 3D consoles and PC graphics cards in the mid-1990s.
 * The widespread adoption of CD-based storage and software distribution
 * Continuing advancement of CPU speed and sophistication
 * Widespread adoption of GUI-based operating systems, such as the series of Amiga OS, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS
 * Shrinking of hardware, with handheld game consoles and mobile phones, which enabled mobile gaming
 * The emergence of the Internet, which in the late 1990s enabled online cooperative play and competitive gaming

Aside from technology, in the early part of the decade, licensed games became more popular, as did video game sequels.

The arcades experienced a renaissance in the early 1990s following the release of Street Fighter II (1991), which led to a number of other popular fighting games such as Fatal Fury (1991) and Mortal Kombat (1992). The arcade resurgence was further driven by increasing realism, with the "3D Revolution" from 2D and pseudo-3D graphics to true real-time 3D polygon graphics, following the release of games such as Virtua Racing (1992) and Virtua Fighter (1993). In the late 1990s, there was a transition away from arcades to home systems. Until about 1996-1997, arcade video games represented the largest sector of the global video game industry, before arcades declined and the console market surpassed arcade video games for the first time around 1997-1998. Arcade systems such as the Sega Model 3 remained more technologically advanced than home systems in the late 1990s, but the gap between arcade and home systems began narrowing in the late 1990s.

The video game industry generated worldwide sales of US$19.8 billion in 1993 (equivalent to $ in ), US$20.8 billion in 1994 (equivalent to $ in ), and an estimated US$30 billion in 1998 (equivalent to $ in ). In the United States alone, in 1994, arcades generated US$7 billion in quarters while home console game sales generated US$6 billion Combined, this was nearly two and a half times the US$5 billion revenue generated by movies in the United States at the time.

2000s

In 2000s, the video game industry was in heavy development; profit still drove technological advancement used by other industry sectors. Technologies such as Smartphones, virtual reality, and augmented reality were major drivers for game hardware and gameplay development. Though maturing, the video game industry was still very volatile, with third-party video game developers quickly cropping up, and just as quickly, going out of business. Nevertheless, many casual games and indie games became successful, such as Braid and Limbo. Game development for mobile phones (such as iOS and Android devices) and social networking sites emerged. For example, a Facebook game developer, Zynga, raised more than $300 million.

2010s
Indie games are not the main driver but significantly impact the industry, such as Spelunky, Fez, Don't Starve, Castle Crashers, and Minecraft, with millions of dollars and users. In the 2010s, the shift increased to casual and mobile gaming, and in 2016, the mobile video game market was estimated at $38 billion in revenues, compared to $6 billion for the console market and $33 billion for personal computing gaming. Virtual reality and augmented reality games arose during this decade. As of 2014, newer game companies arose that vertically integrate live operations and publishing such as crowdfunding and other direct-to-consumer efforts, rather than relying on a traditional publishers, and some of these grew substantially. Spurred by some initial events in the late 2000s, eSports centered around professional players in organized competitions and leagues for prize money, grew greatly over this decade, drawing hundreds of millions of viewers and reaching nearly $500 million in revenue by 2016 and expected to break $1 billion by 2019.

2020s
The next generations of Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 were planned for 2020, but the video game industry was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that had a worldwide impact starting in March 2020 due to forced stay-at-home orders by governmental regulations. There were similar impacts to the video game industry as with other industries, such as cancellation of in-person trade shows, conventions and esports events, and the delay of many games into late 2020, 2021, or beyond, and the industry was one of the few to actually thrive from a home-bound population using video games to cope. The market had a 20% year-to-year growth from 2019, reaching over US$179 billion in global revenue in both hardware and software for 2020. Easily learned games with high social interactions were popular, including Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Fall Guys, and Among Us.

As the pandemic wore on from 2020 into 2021, a secondary effect was the impact of the global semiconductor chip shortage on hardware manufacturing. The three major console vendors, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, were impacted by availability of supply of core components, and for the latter two, limited the launch of their new consoles. The chip supply shortage also affected personal computer gamers, coupled with demand for computer parts to be used in cryptocurrency mining, which artificially raised prices and made it difficult to purchase newer components. However, after cryptocurrency mining started paying out less during and following the 2021–2022 cryptocurrency crash, computer parts such as GPUs have become more affordable as of August 2022.

Economics
Early development costs were minimal, and video games could be quite profitable. Games developed by a single programmer, or by a small team of programmers and artists, could sell hundreds of thousands of copies each. Many of these games only took a few months to create, so developers could release multiple games per year. Thus, publishers could often be generous with benefits, such as royalties on the games sold. Many early game publishers started from this economic climate, such as Origin Systems, Sierra Entertainment, Capcom, Activision and Electronic Arts.

As computing and graphics power increased, so too did the size of development teams, as larger staffs were needed to address the ever-increasing technical and design complexities. The larger teams consist of programmers, artists, game designers, and producers. Their salaries can range anywhere from $50,000 to $120,000 generating large labor costs for firms producing video games which can often take between one and three years to develop. Modern budgets typically reach millions of dollars and use middleware and pre-built game engines. In addition to growing development costs, marketing budgets have grown dramatically, sometimes two to three times of the cost of development.

Traditionally, the video game monetization method is to sell hard copies in retail store. Cheaper production and distribution methods include online distribution.

In the 2010s, the video game industry had a major impact on the economy through the sales of major systems and games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, which had over $650 million of sales in the game's first five days and which set a five-day global record for a movie, book or video game. The game's income was more than the opening weekend of Spider-Man 3 and the previous title holder for a video game Halo 3. Many individuals have also benefited from the economic success of video games including the former chairman of Nintendo and Japan's third richest man: Hiroshi Yamauchi. By 2014, the global video game market was valued at over $93 billion.

The industry wide adoption of high-definition graphics during the seventh generation of consoles greatly increased development teams' sizes and reduced the number of high-budget, high-quality games under development. In 2013 Richard Hilleman of Electronic Arts estimated that only 25 developers were working on such games for the eighth console generation, compared to 125 at the same point in the seventh generation-console cycle seven or eight years earlier.

By 2018, the United States video game industry had matched that of the United States film industry on basis of revenue, with both having made around US$43 billion that year.

Since 2000, the video game industry was considered recession-proof, having thrived compared to other industries during the 2008 Great Recession, and as one of the more profitable industries during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Video games are seen as a low-cost vice and entertainment for consumers when approaching recession. However, in 2022, atop pandemic economic fallout including chip shortages, supply chain disruption, and consumers preferring outdoor activities, the industry started to indicate recession with global revenues falling for the first time in twenty years.

Retail
The industry's shift from brick and mortar retail to digital downloads led to a severe sales decline at video game retailers such as GameStop, following other media retailers superseded by Internet delivery, such as Blockbuster, Tower Records, and Virgin Megastores. GameStop diversified its services by purchasing chains that repair wireless devices and expanding its trade-in program through which customers trade used games for credit towards new games. The company began to produce its own merchandise and games. In Britain, the games retailer Game revamped its stores so customers would spend time playing games there. It built a gaming arena for events and tournaments. The shift to digital marketplaces, especially for smartphones, led to an influx of inexpensive and disposable games, and lower engagement among gamers who otherwise purchased new games from retail. Customers also shifted away from the tradition of buying games on their first day of release.

Publishers often funded trade-in deals to encourage consumers to purchase new games. Trade-in customers at the Australian retailer Game would purchase twice the games per year as non-trade-in customers. The sale of pre-owned games kept retailers in business, and composed about a third of Game's revenue. Retailers also saved on the UK's value-added tax, which only taxed the retailer's profit on pre-owned games, rather than the full sale on regular games. The former trade-in retail executives behind the trade-in price comparison site Trade In Detectives estimated that the United Kingdom's trade-in industry was about a third of the size of its new games business. They figured that sites such as eBay, which convert used games into cash, compose about a quarter of the UK's trade-in market, but do not keep the credit within the industry. While consumers might appear to receive better offers on these sites, they also take about 15 percent of the selling price in fees. Alternatively, some retailers will match the trade-in values offered by their competitors. Microsoft's original plan for the Xbox One attempted to translate trade-in deals for the digital marketplace, with a database of product licenses that shops would be able to resell with publisher permission, though the plan was poorly received or poorly sold.

Practices
Video game industry practices are similar to those of other entertainment industries (e.g., the music recording industry), but the video game industry in particular has been accused of treating its development talent poorly. This promotes independent development, as developers leave to form new companies and projects. In some notable cases, these new companies grow large and impersonal, having adopted the business practices of their forebears, and ultimately perpetuate the cycle.

However, unlike the music industry, where modern technology has allowed a fully professional product to be created extremely inexpensively by an independent musician, modern games require increasing amounts of manpower and equipment. This dynamic makes publishers, who fund the developers, much more important than in the music industry.

Breakaways
In the video game industry, it is common for developers to leave their current studio and start their own. A particularly famous case is the "original" independent developer Activision, founded by former Atari developers. Activision grew to become the world's second largest game publisher. In the meantime, many of the original developers left to work on other projects. For example, founder Alan Miller left Activision to start another video game development company, Accolade (now Atari née Infogrames).

Activision was popular among developers for giving them credit in the packaging and title screens for their games, while Atari disallowed this practice. As the video game industry took off in the mid-1980s, many developers faced the more distressing problem of working with fly-by-night or unscrupulous publishers that would either fold unexpectedly or run off with the game profits.

Piracy
The industry claims software piracy to be a big problem, and takes measures to counter this. Digital rights management have proved to be the most unpopular with gamers, as a measure to counter piracy. The most popular and effective strategy to counter piracy is to change the business model to freemium, where gamers pay for their in-game needs or service. Strong server-side security is required for this, to properly distinguish authentic transactions from hacked transactions.

Creative control
On various Internet forums, some gamers have expressed disapproval of publishers having creative control since publishers are more apt to follow short-term market trends rather than invest in risky but potentially lucrative ideas. On the other hand, publishers may know better than developers what consumers want. The relationship between video game developers and publishers parallels the relationship between recording artists and record labels in many ways. But unlike the music industry, which has seen flat or declining sales in the early 2000s,  the video game industry continues to grow.

In the computer games industry, it is easier to create a startup, resulting in many successful companies. The console industry is more closed, and a game developer must have up to three licenses from the console manufacturer:
 * 1) A license to develop games for the console
 * 2) The publisher must have a license to publish games for the console
 * 3) A separate license for each game

In addition, the developer must usually buy development systems from the console manufacturer in order to even develop a game for consideration, as well as obtain concept approval for the game from the console manufacturer. Therefore, the developer normally has to have a publishing deal in place before starting development on a game project, but in order to secure a publishing deal, the developer must have a track record of console development, something which few startups will have.

Alternatives
An alternative method for publishing video games is to self-publish using the shareware or open source model over the Internet.

Gaming conventions
Gaming conventions are an important showcase of the industry. The major annual video game conventions include Gamescom in Cologne (Germany), the E3 in Los Angeles (US), the Penny Arcade Expo, and others.

Regional distribution
As with other forms of media, video games have often been released in different world regions at different times. The practice has been used where localization is not done in parallel with the rest of development or where the game must be encoded differently, as in PAL vs. NTSC. It has also been used to provide price discrimination in different markets or to focus limited marketing resources. Developers may also stagger digital releases so as not to overwhelm the servers hosting the game.

International practices
The video game industry had its primary roots in the United States following the introduction of arcade games and console systems, with Japan soon following. With the introduction of the personal computer, Western Europe also became a major center for video game development. Since then, the industry is primarily led by companies in North American, Europe, and Japan, but other regions, including Australia/New Zealand, and other East Asian countries including China and South Korea, have become significant sectors for the industry.

World trends
International video game revenue was over $142B in 2022. This is almost double the revenue of the international film industry in 2023.

The largest nations by estimated video game revenues in 2016 are the United States ($46.4B), China ($44B), and Japan ($19.1B).

The gaming industry saw strong growth in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and this trend continued into 2021.

Largest markets
According to market research firm Newzoo, the following countries are the largest video game markets by annual revenue, :

According to market research firm Newzoo, the following countries are the largest video game markets by number of players in the top 10 richest video game markets, :

In general, spending on gaming tends to increase with increase in nominal GDP. However, gaming is relatively more popular in East Asia, and relatively less popular in India.

Canada

Canada has the third largest video game industry in terms of employment numbers. The video game industry has also been booming in Montreal since 1997, coinciding with the opening of Ubisoft Montreal. Recently, the city has attracted world leading game developers and publishers studios such as Ubisoft, EA, Eidos Interactive, Artificial Mind and Movement, BioWare, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Strategy First, mainly because video games jobs have been heavily subsidized by the provincial government. Every year, this industry generates billions of dollars and thousands of jobs in the Montreal area. Vancouver has also developed a particularly large cluster of video game developers, the largest of which, Electronic Arts, employs over two thousand people. The Assassin's Creed series, along with the Tom Clancy series have all been produced in Canada and have achieved worldwide success. For consumers, the largest video games convention in Canada is the Enthusiast Gaming Live Expo (EGLX).

United States
The video game industry got its start in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the creation of arcade games like Pong and the first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey. Several factors, including loss of publishing control, a flooded market, and competition from personal computers, led to the 1983 video game crash in the U.S., affecting both arcades and home game systems. Nintendo's introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System helped to revitalize the industry, but until Microsoft's introduction of the Xbox in the early 2000s, the hardware side was dominated by mostly Japanese-developed systems. Instead, much of the industry's growth in the U.S. was on game development, implementing new game technologies and gameplay concepts, as well as creating the large-scale publisher model used by companies like Electronic Arts to support marketing and distribution of games.

The United States has the largest video games presence in the world in terms of total industry employees. In 2017, the U.S. game industry as a whole was worth US$18.4 billion and consisted of roughly 2457 companies that had a rough total of 220,000 people employed. U.S. video game revenue is forecast to reach $230 billion by 2022, making it the largest video game market in the world. Over 150 million Americans play video games, with an average age of 35 and a gender breakdown of 59 percent male and 41 percent female. American gamers are more likely to vote than non-gamers, feel that the economy is the most important political issue, and lean conservative, however party demographics are split evenly with 38% identifying as Democrats, 38% identifying as Republicans, and 24% identifying as Independents.

Germany

Germany has the largest video games market in Europe, with revenues of $4.1 billion forecast for 2017. The annual Gamescom in Cologne is Europe's largest video game expo.

One of the earliest internationally successful video game companies was Gütersloh-based Rainbow Arts (founded in 1984) who were responsible for publishing the popular Turrican series of games. The Anno series and The Settlers series are globally popular strategy game franchises since the 1990s. The Gothic series, SpellForce and Risen are established RPG franchises. The X series by Egosoft is the best-selling space simulation. The FIFA Manager series was also developed in Germany. The German action game Spec Ops: The Line (2012) was successful in the markets and received largely positive reviews. One of the most famed game from Germany is Far Cry (2004) by Frankfurt-based Crytek, who also produced the topseller Crysis and its sequels later.

Other well-known current and former developers from Germany include Ascaron, Blue Byte, Deck13, EA Phenomic, Piranha Bytes, Radon Labs, Related Designs, Spellbound Entertainment and Yager Development. Publishers include Deep Silver (Plaion), dtp entertainment, Kalypso Media and Nintendo Europe. Bigpoint Games, Gameforge, Goodgame Studios and Wooga are among the world's leading browser game and social network game developers/distributors.

United Kingdom
The UK industry is the third largest in the World in terms of developer success and sales of hardware and software by country alone but fourth behind Canada in terms of people employed. The size of the UK game industry is comparable to its film or music industries.

Like most European countries, the UK entered the video game industry through personal computers rather than video game consoles. Low-cost computers like the ZX Spectrum and Amiga 500 led to numerous "bedroom coders" that would make and sell games through mail-order or to distributors that helped to mass-produce them. Coupled with quirky british humour, the "Britsoft" wave of popular games led to a number of influential people and studios in the 1990s. As game programming became more complex and costly in the early 2000s, more traditional studio structures arose to support both personal computers and consoles, with several studios that, in some form or another, remain highly regarded and influential in the present.

Some of the studios have become defunct or been purchased by larger companies such as LittleBigPlanet developer, Media Molecule and Codemasters. The country is home to some of the world's most successful video game franchises, such as Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto, Fable, Colin McRae Dirt, and Total War.

The country also went without tax relief until March 21, 2012 when the British government changed its mind on tax relief for UK developers, which without, meant most of the talented development within the UK may move overseas for more profit, along with parents of certain video game developers which would pay for having games developed in the UK. The industry trade body TIGA estimates that it will increase the games development sector's contribution to UK GDP by £283 million, generate £172 million in new and protected tax receipts to HM Treasury, and could cost just £96 million over five years. Before the tax relief was introduced there was a fear that the UK game industry could fall behind other leading game industries around the world such as France and Canada, of which Canada overtook the UK in terms of job numbers in the industry in 2010.

China
China had not been a major factor in the global video game market early on due to economic factors, governmental oversight, and a black market for foreign products. The government initiated a ban on video game consoles in 2000 that lasted through 2014, during which China's video game market grew for personal computer games, particularly subscription-based and microtransaction-based ones that were amenable to use in PC cafes, and later into mobile games. Media publishers like Tencent and NetEase focused on these types of games, growing successfully during the 2010s to become leading international companies. As of 2015, China's video game market revenue exceeds that of the United States, and is the largest country by both revenue and number of players. China is also the largest contributor towards esports in both revenue and in the number of professional players from the country. The industry, like most media in China, is tightly controlled by the government, with strong restrictions on what content may be in games, and incorporation of anti-addiction measures to limit playtime. It is home to Asia Game Show, the largest game convention in the world by attendance.

Japan
The Japanese video game industry is markedly different from the industry in North America, Europe and Australia. Japan initially trailed the United States in entering the video game sector as its companies followed trends set by their American partners, but started to pioneer their own ideas soon after. Several Japanese-developed arcade games, such as Space Invaders, helped to usher in the golden age of arcade video games from 1978 to 1982. The 1983 video game crash that affected the North American market did have small but short-term effects in Japan, as most companies involved in the business were well-established and could weather the disruption. Nintendo took the opportunity to push the Nintendo Entertainment System, a rebranding of its Famicom system, into the Western markets after the crash, implementing technical and business practices to avoid the factors that created the 1983 crash but also secured its control on what games were published for the system. Japan became the dominant home for consoles and console games through the early 2000s, challenged only by the incorporation of large publishers in the West and the Xbox line of consoles from Microsoft. Nintendo along with companies like Sega, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Capcom are dominant leaders in the Japanese video game industry.

Nintendo themselves are recognized for having created some of the most positively-reviewed and best-selling video game series such as Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid and Pokémon.

In recent years, consoles and arcade games have both been overtaken by downloadable free-to-play games on the PC and mobile platforms.

South Korea
The video game industry in South Korea generally followed the same early trends as the Japanese market, but players started focusing on massively-multiplayer online games (MMO) and other games that could be played at PC bangs (Internet cafes). South Korea was one of the first major regions involved in esports in the 1990s and 2000s, and today a large number of professional esports players originate from South Korea.

Bangladesh
Video gaming is a relatively new sector in Bangladesh. Games have been developed since 2002, mostly independently. However, from 2014, some IT companies have started to develop video games commercially. Some research has been carried out at various universities to improve the video game development sector.

India
Video gaming in India is an emerging market since India is experiencing strong growth in online gaming, making it one of the top gaming markets in the world. Over the past few decades, the Indian gaming industry has gone from close to nonexistent in the 1990s to one of the top markets globally in the late 2010s. In 2019, the online gaming market in India was estimated at inr 62000000000 with an estimated 300 million gamers, a 41.6% increase from 2018. As of 2021, it is one of the top five mobile gaming markets in the world. The industry is projected to reach 510 million gamers by 2022.

Africa
The video game industry is still in its infancy throughout the African continent, but due to the continent's young population and increasing technological literacy, the sector is growing rapidly. African countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya have been making rapid advances in mobile game development, both within their country and internationally, but due to limited funding and a market overcrowded with Western games, success has thus far been minimal.

Australia and New Zealand
Australia and New Zealand have an active video game industry, with several standalone developers as well as additional studios from other major developers across the globe.

Conventions, trade shows, and conferences
Gaming conventions are an important showcase of the industry. These typically provide the means for developers and publishers to demonstrate their games directly to video game players and consumers and obtain feedback. New games are frequently introduced during these events. Some examples of each conventions include the annual Gamescom in Cologne, and numerous PAX events. Some publishers, developers and technology producers also have their own regular conventions, with BlizzCon, QuakeCon, Nvision and the X shows being prominent examples.

National trade groups that support their local video game industry often will hold trade shows aimed for developers and publishers to interact more directly with the video game media, and with retailers and distributors for planning future sales of products. The largest such trade show is the E3 in Los Angeles, California is held by the Entertainment Software Association. Other similar trade shows include Tokyo Game Show (Japan), Brasil Game Show (Brazil), EB Games Expo (Australia), KRI (Russia), ChinaJoy (China) and the annual Game Developers Conference.

The development of video games is also a topic of academic and professional interest, leading to a number of conferences for developers to share their knowledge with others. Two of the major professional conferences include the Game Developers Conference (GDC), which holds multiple events through the year but with its main annual conference held in March in San Francisco, and the D.I.C.E. Summit run by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences in February of each year at Las Vegas, Nevada.

Media coverage and archiving
The coverage of the video game industry started off with several magazines covering the topic, but as the Internet became widely available to support new media, much of the dedicated coverage of the video game industry has transitioned to detected websites, including Gamasutra, IGN, Eurogamer, Polygon and GameSpot. More recently, the effect of social media influencers, video game players that create online videos or stream themselves playing games through services like Twitch, have also become a significant source for coverage of video game news from the consumer point of view.

Another facet of tracking the history of the video game industry is video game preservation, a process that is complicated due to game hardware technology that can become obsolete, dependencies on decommissioned online servers, and issues over intellectual property that legally restricts preservation efforts. Much of the industry's history prior to the 1983 crash has been lost, as companies affected by the crash simply threw material away, leaving little to recover today. There is better awareness of video game preservation into the 21st century, and several groups and museums have been established to collect and preserve hardware and software for the industry.

Recognition within the industry
The video game industry has a number of annual award ceremonies, commonly associated with the above conventions, trade shows, and conferences, as well as standalone award shows. Many of the dedicated video game journalism websites also have their own set of awards. Most commonly, these ceremonies are capped by the top prize, the "Game of the Year".

Trends
Players become fourth-party developers, allowing for more open source models of game design, development and engineering. Players also create modifications (mods), which in some cases become just as popular as the original game for which they were created. An example of this is the game Counter-Strike, which began as a mod of the video game Half-Life and eventually became a very successful, published game in its own right.

While this "community of modifiers" may only add up to approximately 1% of a particular game's user base, the number of those involved will grow as more games offer modifying opportunities (such as, by releasing source code) and the video user base swells. According to Ben Sawyer, as many as 600,000 established online game community developers existed as of 2012. This effectively added a new component to the game industry value chain and if it continues to mature, it will integrate itself into the overall industry.

The industry has seen a shift towards games with multiplayer facilities. A larger percentage of games on all types of platforms include some type of competitive online multiplayer capability.

In addition, the industry is experiencing further significant change driven by convergence, with technology and player comfort being the two primary reasons for this wave of industry convergence. Video games and related content can now be accessed and played on a variety of media, including: cable television, dedicated consoles, handheld devices and smartphones, through social networking sites or through an ISP, through a game developer's website, and online through a game console and/or home or office personal computer. In fact, 12% of U.S. households already make regular use of game consoles for accessing video content provided by online services such as Hulu and Netflix. In 2012, for the first time, entertainment usage passed multiplayer game usage on Xbox, meaning that users spent more time with online video and music services and applications than playing multiplayer games. This rapid type of industry convergence has caused the distinction between video game console and personal computers to disappear. A game console with high-speed microprocessors attached to a television set is, for all intents and purposes, a computer and monitor.

As this distinction has been diminished, players' willingness to play and access content on different platforms has increased. The growing video gamer demographic accounts for this trend, as former president of the Entertainment Software Association Douglas Lowenstein explained at the 10th E3 expo, "Looking ahead, a child born in 1995, E3's inaugural year, will be 19 years old in 2014. And according to Census Bureau data, by the year 2020, there will be 174 million Americans between the ages of 5 and 44. That's 174 million Americans who will have grown up with PlayStations, Xboxes, and GameCubes from their early childhood and teenage years...What this means is that the average gamer will be both older and, given their lifetime familiarity with playing interactive games, more sophisticated and discriminating about the games they play."

Evidence of the increasing player willingness to play video games across a variety of media and different platforms can be seen in the rise of casual gaming on smartphones, tablets, and social networking sites as 92% of all smartphone and tablet owners play games at least once a week, 45% play daily, and industry estimates predict that, by 2016, one-third of all global mobile video game revenue will come from tablets alone. Apple's App Store alone has more than 90,000 game apps, a growth of 1,400% since it went online. In addition, game revenues for iOS and Android mobile devices now exceed those of both Nintendo and Sony handheld video game systems combined.

title: Video game industry


text:
Sankt Florian

Sankt Florian (also Florian or St. Florian) is a town in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Linz.

Sankt Florian is the home of St. Florian Monastery, a community of Canons Regular named after Saint Florian and one of the oldest operational monasteries in the world following the Rule of St. Augustine. Composer Anton Bruckner (1824–96), who was a choirboy and later organist in the town, is buried beneath the organ inside the monastic church, which was elevated to the rank of basilica minor in 1999.

The St. Florianer Sängerknaben
The town is also known for its boys' choir (St. Florianer Sängerknaben), founded in 1071. The choir has been a traditional part of the monastery's worship from its beginning and has contributed significantly to the identity of the town. It has particular responsibility for sacred music for the religious community, but also undertakes successful international concert tours and television appearances.

Selected discography

 * Franz Farnberger, Anton Bruckner in St Florian – Requiem & Motetten, St. Florianer Sängerknaben - CD: Studio SM D2639 SM 44, 1997 (with Bruckner's Magnificat & Psalm 22)
 * Gunar Letzbor, Franz Joseph Aumann - Requiem, St. Florianer Sängerknaben, Ars Antiqua Austria - CD: Pan Classics PC 10234, 2008 (with Aumann's Ecce quomodo moritur justus, Tenebrae factae sunt and Te Deum)
 * Gunar Letzbor, Joseph Balthasar Hochreither - Requiem; Missa Jubilus sacer. St. Florianer Sängerknaben, Ars Antiqua Austria - CD: Pan Classics PC 10264, 2014

Museums
Sankt Florian has a firefighting museum (Historisches Feuerwehrzeughaus; situated in a part of the monastic buildings), a hunting museum (Jagdmuseum Schloss Hohenbrunn) and a museum of farming and local history (Sumerauerhof).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Sankt Florian


text:
John S. McCain Jr.

John Sidney "Jack" McCain Jr. (January 17, 1911 – March 22, 1981) was a United States Navy admiral who served in conflicts from the 1940s through the 1970s, including as the Commander, United States Pacific Command.

The son and namesake of a naval officer, McCain grew up in Washington, D.C., and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1931, after which he entered the submarine service. During World War II, he commanded submarines in several theaters of operation and was responsible for sinking several Japanese ships, eventually being decorated with both the Silver Star and Bronze Star. After the war, he held a variety of commands, specializing in amphibious warfare. He led the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965. He also served in several posts in Washington, including the Legislative Affairs Office and as Chief of Naval Information, where he became influential in political affairs. He was a staunch anti-Communist, and his advocacy of a strong naval presence earned him the nickname of "Mr. Seapower".

During the Vietnam War, McCain was Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), commanding all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater from 1968 to 1972. He was a stalwart supporter of President Richard Nixon's policy of Vietnamization. McCain played a significant role in the militarization of U.S. policy towards Cambodia, helping to convince Nixon to launch the 1970 Cambodian Incursion and establishing a personal relationship with Cambodian leader Lon Nol. McCain was also a proponent of the 1971 incursion into Laos. He retired from the Navy in 1972.

His father, Admiral John S. McCain Sr., was a naval aviator and Task Force commander during World War II. They were the first father-son pair to achieve a four-star rank. His son, John S. McCain III, was also a naval aviator who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam during McCain's time as CINCPAC.

Early years, education, and family
McCain was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on January 17, 1911. His father, John S. McCain Sr., was a junior officer on the armored cruiser USS Washington (ACR-11) and was away at sea at the time and his mother, the former Catherine Davey Vaulx, was traveling cross-country to visit with her sister. He was called "Jack" by his family, although he would also be called "Junior" by others, which he liked less. His family's history of military service extended beyond his father—his paternal uncle was U.S. Army Brigadier General William Alexander McCain. His family tree also contained other people engaged in military service, which extended back through many wars.

McCain grew up at various naval stations where his father was posted and then in Northwest, Washington, D.C., going to local schools and working as a paperboy. His father was away on duty for much of his childhood, and his mother did much of the parenting. He graduated from Central High School in the district.

McCain entered the United States Naval Academy in 1927, aged 16. He disliked the hazing tradition and behavioral restrictions of Annapolis, and accumulated many demerits and earned mediocre grades during his years at the Academy. As one biographer wrote, McCain "was given to taking unauthorized midnight leave and spent much of his four ... years in contention with authority and working off massive doses of extra duty." McCain later stated: "I was known as a 'ratey' plebe, and that's the plebe who does not conform always to the specific rules and regulations of the upperclassmen. Some of these upperclassmen would ... require you to do such things which only incited rebellion and mutiny in me, see." At one point, McCain had so many demerits he was at risk of not graduating; his partying and drinking was especially dangerous as it was taking place during Prohibition. During much of his final year there he was banished from Bancroft Hall, the normal residence for midshipmen, and forced instead to live on the barracks ship USS Reina Mercedes (IX-25). He graduated in 1931, finishing 423rd out of 441 in class rank, nineteenth from the bottom.

Upon graduation, he was commissioned an ensign and assigned to duty aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB-37) in the Pacific. He applied to flight school to become a naval aviator, but was turned down due to a heart murmur, and was accepted at Submarine School at Naval Submarine Base New London in Connecticut instead. There, he placed 28th out of 29 in his class.

While stationed on Oklahoma in Long Beach, California, McCain met Roberta Wright, a freshman at the University of Southern California whose father was a successful wildcatter. After Roberta's mother objected to her daughter associating with a sailor, the couple eloped to Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, marrying in Caesar's Bar on January 21, 1933. McCain was suspended five days for leaving ship without permission. The couple would have three children: Jean Alexandra "Sandy" McCain (1934−2019, born at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone); John Sidney McCain III (1936−2018, also born at Coco Solo Naval Air Station); and Joseph Pinckney McCain II (born 1942 at Naval Submarine Base New London).

The family was frequently uprooted as they followed McCain from New London to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and other stations in the Pacific Ocean; Roberta took on the lead role in raising the children. In 1934, McCain was praised for loyalty and for performing his duties very well, but his fitness report said he suffered from nervousness, and he was treated for weight loss at Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital. He served in the old, World War I-era submarines USS S-45 (SS-156) and USS R-13 (SS-90). From 1938 to 1940, he returned to the Naval Academy for a stint of teaching electrical engineering to midshipmen. He later said of this position, "The lads learned soon enough never to try to hoodwink an old hoodwinker." In 1940 and early 1941, he sailed in the more modern submarine USS Skipjack (SS-184) (SS-184) as part of the Pacific Fleet's SubDiv 15. In April 1941, McCain was detached to his first command, the antique USS O-8 (SS-69) (SS-69), recommissioned as a training boat at the Submarine School in New London.

World War II
After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, McCain would not see his family for long stretches. By then a lieutenant commander, McCain was assigned to command the submarine USS Gunnel (SS-253), joining her in May 1942 for trials and seeing the boat commissioned in August 1942.

Gunnel was deployed as part of the November 1942 invasion of French North Africa. Operating conditions for the five submarines sent there were not favorable, due to overcrowded waters, poor weather, and mixed-up signals, and the deployment had no accomplishments. Like many other U.S. submarines, Gunnel was attacked in error by friendly aircraft. The Hooven-Owens-Rentschler (H.O.R.) diesels (known as "whores") which powered Gunnel were troublesome; at one point while returning home, drive gears of all four of the main engines were out of commission, and McCain's crew had to rely on their tiny auxiliary engine for the last 1000 nmi. Gunnel went into the navy yard for an extensive refit and was replaced on patrol station off North Africa by "Pilly" Lent's USS Haddo (SS-255).

After the refit, Gunnel was ordered to the Pacific Fleet, and in June 1943, went on patrol in the East China and Yellow Seas. On June 15, McCain torpedoed and sank the freighter Koyo Maru (6400 tons) in the Tsushima Strait. Early on June 19, he engaged a Japanese convoy that was headed for Shanghai. He torpedoed and sank the freighter Tokiwa Maru (7000 tons) and hit a smaller vessel. The convoy's escorts then staged a prolonged counter-attack on Gunnel, dropping depth charges that shook and damaged the boat and grappling hooks that rattled along its hull.

Underwater for hours, sometimes near the seabottom, McCain surfaced; Japanese escorts fired shells at him as he stood on the bridge, while he fired torpedoes back, striking and sinking one (originally thought to be a destroyer, it was the coastal minesweeper Tsubame). He dove again and the Japanese ships continued in sonar-based pursuit. After a total of 36 hours, nearly all spent underwater, Gunnel's batteries were about to fail and the air was very hot and virtually unbreathable. McCain surfaced in battle stations position, ready to engage in a disadvantageous gun battle with the Japanese pursuers, but they were heading in the opposite direction and he was able to escape.

Persistent trouble from the submarine's diesel engines then cut short the patrol after only eleven days, after which McCain returned to Pearl Harbor. Despite the reduced time, the freighter tonnage Gunnel sunk was the second-largest total for any of the sixteen U.S. submarines deployed into operational areas in the Pacific that month.

McCain was awarded the Silver Star for this patrol, for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action, as Commanding Officer of a submarine in enemy Japanese-controlled waters ... [and] bravery under fire and aggressive fighting spirit." McCain's personality was a good fit for wartime submarine duty. Many of the U.S. submarine commanders trained in peacetime had focused excessively on conformance to regulations and adherence to official tactical doctrine; they lacked the aggressiveness and ability to improvise that the conflict in the Pacific demanded, and by the end of the first year of the war, almost a third of them had been relieved as inadequate.

Gunnel was the first Pearl Harbor boat to have her H.O.R. diesels replaced, and she returned to action off Iwo Jima in December 1943. Alerted by Station HYPO intelligence to the presence of aircraft carriers, on the night of December 2–3, McCain fired four torpedoes at Japanese carrier JAPANESE AIRCRAFT CARRIER Zuihō at a very long range of 6000 yd, only to miss as Zuihō zigged. Although he did not hit it, McCain was one of only a handful of U.S. submarine commanders to actually attack an enemy carrier. Gunnel did sink one ship of 4000 tons during this patrol.

On March 18, 1944, on patrol off Tawi Tawi, the main Japanese fleet anchorage in the Philippines, McCain got another shot at a carrier. He fired from extremely long range 9000 yd, missed the target, and sustained a counterattack of sixteen depth charges. He tried to attack the same carrier over the next four days, but could place his boat no closer than 5 nmi.

During the May 1944 U.S. air strike on Surabaya, Gunnel lay off Tawi Tawi in company with Robert I. Olsen's USS Angler (SS-240), but McCain managed no attacks on Japanese ships. He shifted his operations to the coast of Indochina, where, on June 8, he picked up a convoy, escorted by yet another aircraft carrier. He was unable to approach closer than 15 nmi. In July 1944, he was detached for a brief return to New London.

On his return to Pearl Harbor, the Navy ordered him to command the new USS Dentuda (SS-335) starting October 1944, with commissioning two months later. Now a commander, during his one patrol with that submarine he damaged a large freighter and sank two guard boat-style patrol craft in the East China Sea and the Taiwan Straits. For this action, McCain was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat V.

At the conclusion of the war, McCain sailed Dentuda into Tokyo Bay and had one last meeting with his father, who had been commanding the Fast Carrier Task Force during the latter stages of the war. Slew McCain died four days after the Japanese surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay.

In addition to his Silver and Bronze Stars, McCain's actions in the war earned him two letters of commendation. A superior wrote that: "His zeal in the investigation and development of new submarine tactics and weapons has been outstanding."

"Mr. Seapower"

After the end of the war, McCain remained in the Navy and his family settled in Northern Virginia. He was assigned as Director of Records to the Bureau of Naval Personnel until early 1949. McCain published a January 1949 article in United States Naval Institute Proceedings examining the training challenges the Navy faced in the nuclear era. He assumed command of Submarine Division 71 in the Pacific that year, with his flag in USS Carp (SS-338), which took him to a variety of naval stations and two exploratory cruises to extreme northern waters, adding to the knowledge of an increasingly important strategic area for submarine operations.

From February through November 1950, McCain was executive officer of the heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul (CA-73), and from June 1950 was involved in the early stages of the Korean War, joining Task Force 77 to patrol the Formosa Strait.

Now a captain, McCain was assigned to a series of posts at the Pentagon in alternation with various commands. He was director of Undersea Warfare Research and Development from 1950 to 1953, commander of Submarine Squadron 6 aboard flagship USS Sea Leopard (SS-483) in the Atlantic from 1953 to 1954, commander of the attack transport USS Monrovia (APA-31) from 1954 to 1955 in the Mediterranean, Director of the Progress Analysis Group from 1955 to 1957, and commander of the heavy cruiser USS Albany (CA-123) from 1957 to 1958. During these years, McCain went to the Naval Academy a number of times to admonish his son John on his performance there, which was at least as troublesome as his own had been. As one biographical profile stated, "Few fathers and sons could have been more alike as adolescents than Jack McCain and John Sidney III: Youthful rebellion seemed encoded in their DNA."

McCain was promoted to rear admiral in November 1958. From 1958 to 1960, he was assigned to the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, where he joined the Legislative Affairs Office as Chief Legislative Liaison. There he formed many useful political connections, as senators, representatives, admirals, and generals were all frequent social visitors to his centrally-located D.C. house, which would later become the Capitol Hill Club. McCain was also a member of the Cosmos Club, Army and Navy Club, and the Chevy Chase Club, all in the D.C. area, and was a 33rd degree mason. His wife Roberta, viewed as "charming" and "wonderful" by McCain's superiors, also aided the social success, which featured as house guests powerful Congressional figures such as Carl Vinson, Richard Russell Jr., and Everett Dirksen. (His son John would witness some of these and earlier interactions and two decades later assume the same role, on way to the start of his political career. ) During this stint, Rear Admiral McCain became an effective advocate for the Navy in congressional hearings and behind-the-scenes dealmaking, and helped persuade Congress to restore budget allocations it had earlier cut from construction programs for aircraft carriers.

From 1960 to 1962, McCain held commands in the Atlantic, including Amphibious Group 2 and Amphibious Training, and served on USS Taconic (AGC-17) and USS Mount McKinley (AGC-7). He was Chief of Naval Information from 1962 to 1963, initiating the post and garnering influence with the Washington press that would aid his career. Following the April 1963 loss of the nuclear submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593), he explained to the public why the search for the wreckage would be lengthy and difficult, and defended the Navy against charges that it had been tardy in disclosing details of the disaster. McCain was promoted to vice admiral in July 1963, and was made commander of the entire Amphibious Forces, Atlantic Fleet (COMPHIBLANT). He came up with the idea for Operation Sea Orbit, the voyage around the world without refuelling of three nuclear-powered Navy ships; it was reminiscent of the Great White Fleet circumnavigation that his father had been part of over half a century earlier. Later in 1964, McCain commanded the Operation Steel Pike exercise off the coast of Spain, which was the largest amphibious landing ever in peacetime; he was awarded be a gold star in lieu of a Legion of Merit for this operation. After the operation he defended the performance of the United States Merchant Marine before the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and became a prominent public advocate for the geostrategic importance of the merchant marine.

In 1964 McCain was elected as an hereditary member of the Virginia Society of the Cincinnati by right of his descent from his great(4) grandfather Captain John Young who served with the Virginia State Troops during the American Revolution.

In April 1965, McCain led the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic as commander of Task Force 124, which maintained a military occupation until civil unrest had ended. McCain later said, "Some people condemned this as an 'unwarranted intervention,' but the Communists were all set to move in and take over. People may not love you for being strong when you have to be, but they respect you for it and learn to behave themselves when you are." He also worked closely with U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States Ellsworth Bunker, who was handling negotiations between local factions. For this operation, McCain was awarded the Legion of Merit.

McCain then served three roles simultaneously: vice chairman of delegation to the United Nations Military Staff Committee, Commander Eastern Sea Frontier, and Commander Atlantic Reserve Fleet. The U.N. post was considered to be a career dead-end, but McCain looked to his political contacts to keep his career going.

Throughout much of his career, McCain was known for his short and thin stature, salty character, and trademark cigar. One superior wrote that: "There is only one Jack McCain! Vice Admiral McCain, by his enthusiasm, honesty and delightful personality makes many friends, not only officially but socially.... The 'little man with the big cigar' is known to everyone." McCain liked to confer with enlisted men and get their opinions. He swore so much he earned the sobriquet "Good Goddamn McCain"; his regular greeting to begin the day was "Good goddamn morning." He was often asked how he told his wife Roberta and her identical twin sister Rowena apart, to which he famously responded by puffing his cigar, flashing a grin, and saying, "That's their problem." He jumped rope 200 times a day as part of keeping fit. He developed a problem with alcoholism during his career, and cut back on his drinking so that it did not interfere with his ability to command or show up on fitness reports, although he occasionally suffered lapses.

McCain was a staunch promoter of the importance of a strong naval presence, and indeed became known in military-congressional circles, sometimes not approvingly, as "Mr. Seapower". He gave regular speeches on the subject with an increasing fervor, and worked with his large number of political contacts in what some saw as an effort to get a final promotion. During the Cold War, McCain stressed the importance of maintaining naval superiority over the Soviet Union. He was especially concerned in light of the growing number of submarines deployed by the Soviet Navy, calling them "a direct threat to our free use of the oceans of the world." During a long U.S. policy debate regarding the merchant marine force, he continued to stress the importance of that fleet, giving an illustrated talk entitled "Total Wet War" that said the Soviets would soon overtake the fleet in numbers and concluding that "our free use of the seas will play an ever increasing role in the world situation of the future."

Beginning in 1965, Senate Minority Leader Dirksen had been championing McCain's case for four-star admiral promotion to President Lyndon Johnson. McCain had both supporters and detractors within the Navy, but the top commanders had sidetracked him with the U.N. appointment, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had been given the impression that McCain was not a strong commander. Johnson was in debt to Dirksen for having broken the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and so in 1966, Johnson requested that McNamara find a four-star path for McCain.

Vietnam War
In February 1967, McCain received his sought-after promotion to full admiral (which became effective in May), and became Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR), stationed in London. At the change of command ceremony for the Eastern Sea Frontier post, held on his father's old flagship USS Wasp (CV-18), McCain was awarded a gold star in lieu of a third Legion of Merit for his work during the U.N. assignment. As the Vietnam War escalated, McCain was a strong advocate for bringing Iowa-class battleships out of the United States Navy reserve fleets in order to support shore bombardment missions. He ordered a Naval Court of Inquiry to be convened following the June 1967 USS Liberty incident, and chose his colleague, Admiral Isaac C. Kidd Jr., to head it. McCain limited the scope of the Inquiry and gave Kidd only a week to investigate and come up with a report on the matter, factors that led to doubts persisting for decades about what actually took place in the Liberty attack.

McCain's son, naval aviator Lieutenant Commander John S. McCain III, became a prisoner of war in North Vietnam in October 1967, after being shot down and badly injured during a bombing raid over Hanoi. McCain's prominence made the downing of his son front-page news. McCain and his wife Roberta treated the news stoically, attending a dinner party in London without indicating anything was wrong, even though initial word indicated their son was unlikely to have survived the shoot-down. McCain would later say little about his son's captivity in public, other than that they had indications he was alive and "that is something to live for."

McCain continued to expand on his vision of the Soviet threat, saying that the Soviets' maritime goal "encompasses not only the military uses of the sea, but also those relating to world politics, economics, commerce and technology", and likened its propaganda value to the Space Race.

In April 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, McCain was named by President Johnson as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), effective in July 1968, stationed in Honolulu and commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater. In an unprecedented move, Johnson had considered candidates from outside the Navy, including U.S. Army General William Westmoreland, who was leaving as commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). However, the strong recommendation of Ellsworth Bunker, who had since become U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, was key in Johnson's decision. At the change-of-command ceremony for the Europe post, McCain was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.

McCain was a strong believer in the domino theory, and as CINCPAC, emphasized what he saw as the grave threat of Communist Chinese expansion of influence. He became well known within the Pentagon and to the press for his fervent briefings on the "Chicom" menace, showing maps with bright-red claws or arrows extending from a bright-red China into much of the area he was responsible for. To some, McCain was the Navy's most persuasive and energetic briefer, while to others, he was over-the-top and spoke longer than necessary. McCain believed the Pacific Command's role was both to confront the major Communist powers with superior and mobile force, and to provide a deterrent force to protect smaller countries from "aggression, whether this be overtly military or by subversion and infiltration."

When the Nixon Administration took office in January 1969, the secret National Security Study Memorandum 1 collected views of top officials on the prospects for President Richard Nixon's policy of Vietnamization. There was a division of thought among those contributing, but McCain was one of those who were relatively optimistic, believing the North Vietnamese had entered peace talks due to military weakness, South Vietnamese pacification progress was real, and the tide of the war was favorably turning. McCain suffered a mild stroke around this time, but was back at work a month later. Following an inspection tour of South Vietnam in December 1969, McCain remained very optimistic about the course of the war and the ability of South Vietnamese forces to carry greater burdens. McCain did not give much credence to the anti-Vietnam War movement; in reaction to the popular slogan "Make love, not war", he told a 1970 Naval Academy class that they were part of a fraternity "whose members are men enough to do both."

McCain played an important part in the expansion of U.S. involvement in Cambodia. In April 1970, McCain gave personal briefings to Nixon in Honolulu, and to Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger in San Clemente, where he highlighted the threat from North Vietnamese operations in Cambodia and Laos. In particular, he said that Lon Nol's government in Cambodia would soon collapse unless North Vietnamese operations there were stopped, and that with a secure base there, North Vietnam could then launch attacks on South Vietnam which would cause the failure of Vietnamization. McCain additionally said that the schedule for the ongoing withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Vietnam had to be flexible. McCain's views, which had the support of his subordinate, MACV commander General Creighton Abrams, helped persuade Nixon to go ahead with the Cambodian Incursion later that month. Kissinger subsequently told another admiral, "We have to be careful about having McCain around the president too much, because he fires up the president."

By fall 1970, McCain worried that Kissinger's plan for extensive commitment of South Vietnamese troops to preserve the Cambodian regime would endanger the progress of Vietnamization. Nevertheless, McCain was involved in the intense U.S. effort to prop up Cambodian leader Lon Nol, paying visits to Phnom Penh to give him assurances and assess the state of the Cambodians. When Lon Nol suffered a stroke in early 1971, he recuperated at McCain's guesthouse in Honolulu. At the same time, a Military Equipment Delivery Team program was organized to supply military assistance to the Cambodian government. McCain gained control of this effort (instead of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam), and to support a conflict that he proprietarily spoke of as "my war", made constant requests to the Pentagon for more arms and staff. He forced an Americanization of many logistics procedures within the Cambodian military. He sided with Kissinger and the Joint Chiefs of Staff as they prevailed over the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia and U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird in adopting a militarization of American policy with regard to that country. Lon Nol's gratitude towards McCain continued, including the gift of an elephant (soon named "Cincpachyderm") too large to transport on McCain's DC-6.

McCain was also very concerned about the North Vietnamese presence in Laos. He was a proponent of Operation Lam Son 719, the February–March 1971 U.S.-assisted incursion into southeastern Laos by the South Vietnamese Army. He told Admiral Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that an offensive against the Ho Chi Minh Trail might compel Prince Souvanna Phouma, prime minister of Laos, "to abandon the guise of neutrality and enter the war openly." The operation ended in failure.

Each year while Jack McCain was CINCPAC, he paid a Christmastime visit to the American troops in South Vietnam serving closest to the DMZ; he would stand alone and look north, to be as close to his son as he could get. During Operation Linebacker, the resumed bombing of the north starting in April 1972, the targets included the Hanoi area. The daily orders were issued by McCain, knowing his imprisoned son was in the vicinity.

In March 1972, the Nixon administration announced Admiral Noel Gayler as McCain's successor as CINCPAC, despite McCain's unheeded request to Nixon to have his tour extended so that he could see the war to its conclusion. McCain's time as CINCPAC ended on September 1, 1972; at the transfer of command ceremony in Honolulu that day, President Nixon focused on the contributions of the three generations of McCains – saying, "In the story of the McCains we see the greatness of America" – and awarded McCain a gold star in lieu of his second Navy Distinguished Service Medal. For the next two months, McCain served as special assistant to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.

Kissinger would later characterize McCain's approach to the Vietnam War by saying, "He fought for the victory that his instinct and upbringing demanded and that political reality forbade."

Retirement and death
Admiral McCain retired on November 1, 1972. There was no ceremony, as it would have been redundant after the one that took place two months earlier in Hawaii; as one associate said, "He just didn't come to work today."

In early 1973, with the conclusion of the Paris Peace Accords, his son was released from confinement as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and repatriated to the United States.

McCain visited the White House in 1975 and discussed naval preparedness issues with President Gerald Ford. During the late 1970s, McCain sometimes acted as an advisor on military matters to Ronald Reagan, who was preparing for his third presidential candidacy. McCain also participated in a January 1978 traveling "Panama Canal Truth Squad", led by Senator Paul Laxalt, that sought Senate rejection of the Panama Canal Treaty; McCain felt that the eventual ceding of the canal to Panamanian control would endanger U.S. security and provide an opening to the Soviets in the region.

However, McCain felt despair over his reluctant retirement from the United States Navy, and fell into prolonged poor health. His son John felt his father's "long years of binge drinking" had caught up with him, despite a mostly successful later recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous.

McCain died of a heart attack on a military aircraft en route from Europe on March 22, 1981, with his wife at his side. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on March 27, 1981.

Namesakes
USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) was named for both Admirals McCain. The Navy rededicated the ship to also honor Senator John S. McCain III in 2018.

McCain was written about extensively in his son John's 1999 memoir Faith of My Fathers. McCain was portrayed by actor Scott Glenn in the 2005 television movie adaptation.

Grandson John S. "Jack" McCain IV attended and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 2009, the fourth-generation John S. McCain to do so. He became a naval aviator, like his father and great-grandfather, including flying helicopters during the War in Afghanistan. John S. McCain IV has a son John S. "Mac" McCain V.

Awards
By the end of his career, Admiral John S. McCain Jr. had received the following medals and decorations:

title: John S. McCain Jr.


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User:Amarant~enwiki

Hi! During the summer of 2001 I discovered Wikipedia and couldn't get away from it!. I have been working mostly on the Dutch Wikipedia. Haven't been active on any wikipedia for some years now. But never say never... nl:Gebruiker:Amarant

title: User:Amarant~enwiki


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Frederic Bartlett

Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett CBE FRS (20 October 1886 – 30 September 1969) was a British psychologist and the first professor of experimental psychology at the University of Cambridge. He was one of the forerunners of cognitive psychology as well as cultural psychology. Bartlett considered most of his own work on cognitive psychology to be a study in social psychology, but he was also interested in anthropology, moral science, philosophy, and sociology. Bartlett proudly referred to himself as "a Cambridge psychologist" because while he was at the University of Cambridge, settling for one type of psychology was not an option.

Biography
Frederic Bartlett was born on 20 October 1886 into a middle-class family and raised in Gloucestershire, England. Childhood was not easy for Bartlett. He suffered from pleurisy at a young age, causing him to be homeschooled during his secondary years of education. Despite being sick as a youth, he found joy in athletics such as golf, tennis, and cricket.

In 1909, Bartlett graduated First Class Honours with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy at The University Correspondence College. He continued his education at London University where he achieved his master's degree with a distinction in both ethics and sociology. Continuing his education at St John's College, Cambridge, Barlett received a distinction in moral science. Here, he also met Charles Samuel Myers, the Director of the Cambridge Psychology Laboratory. The effects of Bartlett's childhood illnesses kept him from participating in World War I. He became deputy head of the Cambridge Psychology Laboratory in 1914 when Myers was drafted into the war as a medical doctor.

Bartlett's experimental work at this time focused on perception and imaging which contributed to his appointment as a Fellow in 1917. Soon after the war ended, Myers left his Cambridge position, leaving a large donation to finance department lectureships. Bartlett became the Director of the Laboratory and Lecturer of Experimental Psychology. Bartlett later attained the title of Senior Lecturer of Psychology, a post which he held until his death in 1969 at the age of 82.

Psychology and Primitive Culture (1923)
Bartlett's first book in psychology developed a framework to understand human action in cultural context. In contrast to his most famous experimental work (see below) he here develops his argument through his readings of ethnographic sources. In fact, Bartlett had originally wanted to go into anthropology but was encouraged by his mentor W.H.R. Rivers to train as a psychologist first. In Psychology and Primitive Culture, he explores in particular what happens when groups come into contact with each other and what factors condition the exchange and adoption of culture between the groups. The book is also noteworthy in its argument against Lucien Lévy-Bruhl's notion of the 'primitive mind'.

Remembering (1932)
Bartlett was the Chair of Experimental Psychology at Cambridge when he published the book he is most famously recognised for: Remembering (1932). The book explored Bartlett's concept of conventionalization in psychology. It was an assemblage of his past works, including experiments testing the ability to remember using figures, photographs, and stories. Specifically, Remembering consisted of experimental studies on remembering, imaging, and perceiving, and "remembering as a study in social psychology." His Theory of Remembering involved social conditions that were influential to remembering, along with comparisons such as "free remembering" to special circumstances of remembering. The book provided an in depth analysis of Bartlett's schema theory, which has continued to inspire scientists studying schema theories today.

Bartlett is also credited for the transmission chain method. Studies based on the method are described in the book.

"War of the Ghosts"
The "War of the Ghosts" experiment from Remembering (1932) was Bartlett's most famous study and demonstrated the reconstructive nature of memory, and how it can be influenced by the subject's own schema. A memory is constructive when a person gives their opinion about what had happened in the memory, along with additional influences such as their experiences, knowledge, and expectations.

In the experiment, Bartlett assigned his Edwardian English participants to read the Native American Folklore titled "War of the Ghosts". Participants were told to remember the story at extended intervals numerous times. Bartlett found that at longer intervals between reading the story and remembering it, participants were less accurate and forgot much of the information from the story. Most importantly, where the elements of the story failed to fit into the schemata of the listener, these elements were omitted from the recollection, or transformed into more familiar forms. Each participant's report of the story mirrored his or her own culture, Edwardian English culture in this case. An example of this can be demonstrated by some of these participants remembering "canoes" from the story as "boats".

Applied experimental psychology and war efforts
After the publication of Remembering (1932), Bartlett's concerns centred on determining stronger methodologies for social psychology by combining psychology and anthropology. Bartlett, along with colleagues from subjects of psychology, anthropology, and sociology, met twice a year from 1935 to 1938 to collaborate. Bartlett's interest in Applied Experimental Psychology expanded, specifically in regard to the subject of the militia when the Applied Psychology Unit was established at the Cambridge Laboratory of Industrial Research. He and Kenneth Craik were responsible for setting up the Medical Research Council's Applied Psychology Research Unit (APU) at Cambridge in 1944, where they worked with experimental psychologist Magdalen Dorothea Vernon. Together their applied research focused on issues directed from government agencies, including training and experimental designs. Bartlett became the Director of the Unit after Craik's early death in 1945. Bartlett successfully took charge of this lectureship aimed towards military efforts. Expanding upon Craik's past work on "bodily skills" appealed to Bartlett possibly because of his passion for sports during his childhood years. At this time, institutions in England and the United States bestowed numerous awards to Bartlett for his explanations of the adaptive synthesis of movements that humans create given any new situation.

Thinking (1958)
In 1958, Bartlett published Thinking: An Experimental and Social Study. He recognised various thinking processes that humans use, relating back to the methods he exercised in Remembering (1932) such as story recollection. Experiments on completion were done, where participants were shown open ended stories and told to finish them realistically. What he found was that "completion appears even unconsciously, and sheds light on how schemas, as a way of organizing past experiences, lead one towards constructive and predictive processes".

Honours
In 1922, Bartlett was chosen as Director of Psychological Laboratory in Cambridge and awarded a chair in experimental psychology in 1931. The same year he published Remembering (1932), Bartlett became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1944, Bartlett became the Director of the Unit for Research in Applied Psychology. Bartlett's contributions during World War II granted him C.B.E in 1941 and awarded him medals from The Royal Society in 1943. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1945 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1947. He was appointed honoris causa by the University of Athens in 1937, Princeton in 1947, and the University of London and the University of Louvain in 1949. In 1948, Bartlett delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on The Mind at Work and Play. This also marked the year Bartlett was knighted for services to the Royal Air Force, on the basis of his wartime work in applied psychology. In 1950, Bartlett was awarded Presidency at the British Psychological Society. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958.

After his retirement in 1951, Bartlett continued receiving honoris causa from various universities. In 1952, he was awarded the Royal Medal and the Longacre Award of the Aeromedical Association. Between 1952 and 1963, National Psychological Societies of Spain, Sweden, Italy, Turkey, and Switzerland elected him as an honorary member. He was recognised by the International Experimental Psychology Society in 1958 and was selected by The North American National Academy of Science and the North American Academy of Arts to be a foreign associate member in 1959. Today, the UK Ergonomics Society awards a Bartlett medal in his honour, and the Experimental Psychology Society holds an annual Bartlett Lecture.

Books

 * Exercises in logic (Clive, London, 1922)
 * Psychology and Primitive Culture (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1923)
 * Psychology And The Soldier (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1927)
 * Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1932)
 * The Problem of Noise (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1934)
 * Political Propaganda (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1940)
 * Religion as Experience, Belief and Action (Cumberledge, London, 1950)
 * The Mind at Work and Play (Allen and Unwin, London, 1951)
 * Thinking: An Experimental and Social Study (Allen and Unwin, 1958)

title: Frederic Bartlett


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Wikipedia:Harmonious editing club

Welcome to the Harmonious Editing Club! We are a group dedicated to making Wikipedia a more inviting and friendly place for our contributors. Join us by adding your name here.

What is the Harmonious Editing Club?
The Harmonious Editing Club is a group dedicated to making Wikipedia a more inviting and friendly place for our contributors. We do this by resolving disputes, answering users' questions, helping editors with their contributions and participating in requests for input.

Club members are expected to abide by certain guidelines:
 * Members should help resolve any disputes they come across during their time here
 * Members should allow themselves only one revert, rather than three, during a content dispute
 * Avoid edit wars by discussing obviously controversial changes on a talk page. Other than that, be bold (not reckless) in editing
 * Editors should always express some respect or positive regard for differing opinions of other editors, even those with whom they disagree.

title: Wikipedia:Harmonious editing club


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The Church Lady

Enid Strict, better known as The Church Lady, is a fictional character portrayed by Dana Carvey on American sketch comedy television show Saturday Night Live. The character appeared on the show from 1986 to 1990, and again in 1996, 2000, 2011, and 2016. She also appeared on The Dana Carvey Show in March 1996, reading a Top Ten List, "New Titles for Princess Diana."

Development
Dana Carvey developed the character in his stand-up comedy act prior to joining SNL. He said, "At one point it was a schoolteacher being very condescending to kids as they made sailboats." Carvey decided to make the character a religious figure when his mother said his impersonation reminded her of women from their churchgoing days who would keep track of people's attendance. "Mom would bring a casserole to potluck dinners, and then feel inferior. I remember walking into church after our family had missed a few Sundays, and their turns of the heads, that 'Well! Good to see they finally made it!' attitude."

Writer Rosie Shuster helped Carvey develop the concept of the Church Chat talk show. Carvey recalled that he was prompted by executive producer Lorne Michaels to introduce the character (when it was still in SNL rehearsals) at a Neil Young concert at Madison Square Garden, which Church Lady interrupted, fussing and fuming: "What are we doing here? What's all this noise?"

The Church Lady made numerous appearances on SNL, and Nora Dunn recalled that "everybody loved that character."

Character
The Church Lady is a mature woman named Enid Strict who is the uptight, smug, and pious host of her talk show Church Chat. Her show includes guests, usually celebrities whom she interviews, played by other cast members of SNL or by the celebrities themselves. However, the interviews are only a guise for her to call out the guests on their various alleged sins, which are often publicly known news events of the day. They initially receive sarcastic praise from her, until the interview degrades into a tirade against their apparent lack of piety and their secular lifestyles, culminating with her judgmental admonishments and condemnation. She often takes others to task for following the desires of their tingling and/or engorged "naughty parts."

Sometimes the Church Lady was accompanied by a character known as "Minister Bob," played by Chevy Chase. He seemed to be the only person the Church Lady admired. During a church picnic an inebriated woman interrupted the gathering, shocking all the old ladies present, and saying how the Church Lady acts so high and mighty but is out of touch with the problems of people in everyday life. Minister Bob then acts more down to Earth than the Church Lady, saying it is the responsibility of a pastor to deal with people with problems. When he seems to be leading the woman into why problem drinking is a bad idea, he ends with saying "...because of SATAN!", and joins the Church Lady in her Superior Dance.

The Church Lady made her first appearance on the season premiere of season 12. It was not until the twelfth episode of that season, where Willie Nelson performs a duet of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with the Church Lady, that the character became more popular. The Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker scandal was parodied multiple times in sketches and helped make the Church Lady one of SNL's signature characters.

Appearances outside SNL
In a teaser trailer for the 1990 film Opportunity Knocks (available on that film's DVD), the Church Lady interrupts, warning viewers not to see the film and is punched in the face and knocked to the floor by Dana Carvey who introduces himself. The Church Lady retaliates and the fight continues off-screen as the trailer ends.

The Church Lady appeared on ABC's The Dana Carvey Show as part of a larger sketch where a viewer letter asked whether Dana Carvey's SNL characters were to appear on the show. The sketch responded by claiming that ABC used Disney's high-profile lawyers to engage NBC in a hostile takeover, gaining the rights to Carvey's SNL characters, as well as some of the IPs of David Letterman's show on CBS. It then cuts to the Church Lady reading David Letterman's Top Ten List.

Popular catchphrases

 * "Well, isn't that special?"
 * "How con-VEEN-ient!"
 * "Now, who could it be? Could it be ...Satan?" (during a Christmas-themed December broadcast, using a magnetic spelling board, she rearranged letters spelling "Santa" to instead spell "Satan")
 * "We like ourselves, don't we?" (usually directed at a guest on her show)
 * "Ah yes, from the Chippewa word meaning drop your shorts, we don't have much time." (usually directed towards a guest)

title: The Church Lady