August 5, 2025

Consumer Stories

Part 2: Video gaming translates to billions of dollars

From Pong and Mario Brothers to today’s high-level titles, video gaming has turned into a multi-billion-dollar industry in the U.S. Part of that is due to the growing popularity of esports. A recent report from Research and Markets (www.ResearchAndMarkets.com)  found that esports is a fast-growing sector within the entertainment industry. The U.S. market size is currently $2.55 billion. It is projected to grow to $18.85 billion by 2035. “The gaming industry in general makes more money than the music industry and the film industry combined every year, eSports is just

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Consumer Stories

New grocer opens in area ignored by other supermarkets

It’s been more than 15 years since Gurley’s supermarket was open at 464 Greene Street in downtown Augusta. For Kroger at 501 15th Street, it has been more than eight years since it closed. Now, a Broad Street entrepreneur has opened the Downtown Corner Store in a modest 3,000 square foot building. The building at 1018 Broad Street used to be “Flowers on Broad.” It’s in between an art gallery and a gift shop in an eclectic block in downtown Augusta— and a few doors down from the owner’s other

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B2B Stories

Simon Says: 2025’s Been a Good Year!

It has been a while since I updated the Augusta Labor Market Index (LMI) because the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis had not updated its website since December. Recently, it did so through April, and the Augusta LMI has increased by 0.5 percent from December and is 1.2 percent higher than April 2024. The LMI measures labor market vitality through five components: employment, unemployment rate, labor force, average weekly earnings, and average weekly hours worked. Over the past five months, employment increased by 1,200, and the unemployment rate fell

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