Gaming in the most unlikely of places

​​Like many folks who enjoy to read but suffer a lack of shelf space, I decided to finally take the digital plunge and pick up an eReader a couple of weeks ago.

 

After all the usual research, asking around and consulting the stars, I finally settled on the Nook Color, a device I figured would provide me with the easy access and storage of books I desired, as well as a few additional bells and whistles to make it a more worthwhile investment.

 

So why am I writing about this on a gaming blog? Because within the first 24 hours I was playing games on the damn thing. That got me thinking: Games have finally "made it" in this crazy little world of ours.

 

Despite the fact that I love to play games, I didn't pick up an eReader with the intention of actually playing games on it. Pretty quickly, though, I was flinging disgruntled fowl at cocky pigs, exploring the mysteries of Grisly Manor and challenging my special lady-friend to a round of air hockey.

 

We've pretty much reached a point where, if a device has an electronic pulse, it's going to have a way to play games on it. No matter what size that glowing, rectangular screen is, you can probably kill time on it with some video games.

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I call this the "Wii effect." While there were certainly a number of major factors leading to this gaming world we now live in, it took a console like the Wii, specifically targeted at the average family like a laser-guided missile, to finally change everyone's mind.

 

Once moms were swinging an imaginary baseball bat and grandparents were getting in a round at the virtual bowling alley, the road was officially paved for this universal gaming revolution to occur.

 

Now that folks were curious about games, they started looking to play them in places other than in front of the television.

 

That's about the time social media gaming took off. Those same former non-gamers noticed a little thing called Farmville while updating the relatives on Facebook and, before you knew it, mom was spending more time on her virtual farm than you ever did in Azeroth.

 

Once these timid, newborn casual gamers cut their teeth on the television and family computer, they ventured further still, noticing that their cell phone had the ability to play a little something called Angry Birds. It's possible that single title will eventually lead to the downfall of mankind but, for the time being, it's just a really, really successful way to bring more people into the world of games.

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Video games have come a long way in the past few decades but, like all great revolutions, the biggest boom has taken place in the span of just a handful of years. It's as if a switch was flipped and, suddenly, games were no longer the bad guy. It will take some more time for entities like Fox News to come around, but we're getting there.

 

As more and more people discover the pastime, manufacturers are finding more and more ways to make games available on their various devices. That's why I can take a break from my reading to get in some Ms. Pac-Man with the greatest of ease and, moving forward, we're going to see similar access to games no matter where we turn...Like toilets.