I have a 17-year-old son and pretty much every time I see him – well, maybe 98 out of 100 times – he’s playing video games. The other two times he’s eating. Now that I think about it, he usually plays games while he eats, too.

So I’m a little mystified by the recent reports about the sudden suffering of the video game industry, which is big in Los Angeles.

THQ Inc. of Agoura Hills this month reported disappointing earnings and a plan to cut 60 jobs. Electronic Arts, which has a local presence, reported bad earnings and weak guidance, and its stock was thrashed as thoroughly as an unarmed avatar. The studio Luxoflux of Santa Monica was closed Feb. 11 by its parent, Activision Blizzard.

Actually, Activision, based in Santa Monica, stands as the exception. Overall, it is doing well, thanks to brisk sales of its game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.”

But the industry is not doing well at all. Sales were down close to 9 percent last year, according to NPD Group. And its most recent report said sales last month swooned 13 percent.

What’s going on? Is the play out of this game?

Well, several industry analysts have been doing some research and speculating about what’s behind the downturn. There’s the economy, of course, which is the standard bogeyman. Videogames are getting fresh competition from all the free games on iPod Touches and the like. Some think video-gaming time may be giving way to Facebook and Twitter time.

I won’t dispute any of those ideas. But I like to do my own research. So I knocked on my son’s bedroom door. Inside, he was busy laying waste to an evil space station. He didn’t look up when I asked what reasons he could think of to explain the downturn in video-gaming.

He offered up several, but the main one is this: There’s just not much truly new or interesting to buy, he said, as he zapped something or other.

Ahh, yes. There’s a plain old drought in products. The Wii line already is kind of creaky and except for “Modern Warfare 2,” there aren’t that many games that make players’ trigger fingers twitchy.

Instead, gamers seem to be waiting for the next Big Thing. That would seem to be Microsoft’s Project Natal, which is supposed to roll out later this year. It is a game system with no controllers at all. Players will use hand motions and voice commands to control the game.

Behind that is another system that takes the concept even further. It’s called NeuroSky and it uses the brain to control on-screen activity. Players put on a headset with sensors that interpret brain-wave activity.

To be honest, I’m a little weirded out by that; after all, I’m just a guy who’s still flummoxed by that maddening Tetris game. But at the same time, I’m fascinated by the amazing future this implies.

Think about it. Once your brain waves can be captured and used to control game play, what’s next? Can you be part of an imaginary world, interacting with others, thinking your way through new and different kinds of social games? Or maybe acting out parts in movielike dramas or comedies?

I’m sure I’m failing to imagine the true possibilities. But possibilities surely exist. And since Los Angeles is still the capital of the entertainment industry, and since Los Angeles has a good collection of technology companies and especially entertainment-oriented tech companies, those possibilities seem especially promising for Los Angeles.

The current downturn in video-gaming is most likely just a temporary blip, a calm before the next Big Thing, which is transformative technology in which videogames align even more closely with entertainment.

And it could be the Big Thing that’s great for Los Angeles if it pushes the city into the next level of the entertainment business.

Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].