Joystiq

Game industry business stories in 2007 were a pretty one note affair -- record-breaking this, unprecedented sales that, blah blah blah. But the boom times might be ending soon, as the Consumer Entertainment Association is predicting that games industry growth will begin to slow in 2008.

To be clear, this doesn't mean the industry is going to get smaller, by any means. The CEA is still predicting that the industry will grow 13 percent, to $17.9 billion, in the coming year. What's getting smaller is the rate of growth, which was a ridiculously high 22 percent from 2006 to 2007.

This isn't all that distressing, considering economic analysts are pointing to recession across the economic board. In fact, plenty of industries would be positively giddy with 13 percent growth these days. Then again, declining growth is the first step to actual industry shrinkage, which is the first step to the total evaporation of the industry. Then again again, given that we're entering the middle of the current console generation, this is probably just a sign that the chronically cyclical game industry is going through yet another one of its regular cycles. Amid all the uncertainty, one thing is for sure ... economic analysis makes our heads hurt.