THE companies we know collectively as big data – however omnipotent they may currently seem to be – are in fact a subset of an even more powerful collective, known as big tech. So, while we would put Facebook, Google and Amazon into the former, we can add Apple and Microsoft to the latter. The distinction between the two groups, of course, lies in the fact that Apple and Microsoft actually sell products, rather than merely offering them for free in exchange for our personal data.
In recent years, a striking trend has emerged: big tech has muscled its way into the games industry in a big way.