This is unlikely simply due to the size of the market. Video games are played by >60% of the population and generate more revenue than movies with hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake.
This is unlikely simply due to the size of the market. Video games are played by >60% of the population and generate more revenue than movies with hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake.
Admittedly yes, destroying an entire industry that large would be an absolute worst-case scenario you would hope politicians are smart enough to avoid, I don't think it "likely" but I do find it useful to consider how far it could go, because it happened once (to Pinball), and we shouldn't forget that.
(ETA: Keep in mind that gambling laws in the US are extremely local with sometimes even cities in the same state disagreeing, and if a panic happens you just need a few localities with dumbest politicians to pass the harshest bills, and others to copy cat it at "public demand". That's how it happened to Pinball. That's how it happens for all sorts of terrible laws in the last few years we could point to. Bad laws in a panic are viral in the worst ways.)
Honestly I don't think pinball is a similar example, light reading indicates the market for pinball was in the 10s of millions. Inflation adjusted it sounds like the pinball industry was 1% of what modern video games are and, IMO, that kind of difference in size is a difference in kind.
A better analogy might actually be liquor and prohibition, but we're not seeing anger anywhere near that level