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| I bet you can name more of these dinner guests than if it were the original. |
I find it interesting how gamers feel the need to have their hobby validated. Whether or not video games are art has been debated to death, but I've noticed a smaller offshoot of conversation popping up in forums, articles and editorials as of late, posing the question: Have video games "made it."
That seems like a silly question to me but, let's face it, we come from a culture of speedruns, Achievements and leaderboards. Of course we want to know if video games have leveled up enough to become an accepted part of society.
I guess what confuses me the most is how, in this day and age; anyone could still be unsure of the answer.
It's yes, in case you were curious.
I started playing video games in the late 80's. It was a simpler time back then. A time when Mr. T was king, we just said "no" to drugs, and video games were considered nothing more than an expensive toy for kids to play with.
By the time the mid-90's rolled around, people were starting to pay more attention to these funny little boxes you plugged into the TV, primarily because games like Mortal Kombat were scandalizing moms the world over. Also, Baywatch.
It wasn't until the turn of the century that seeing someone with a controller in hand became more of a common occurrence. The Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2 sold like mad while bigwig Microsoft finally got in on the action with its very own Xbox console. For such a prominent company to jump into the industry like that certainly meant something was up on the gaming front.
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I think the big turning point came in late 2006. Microsoft had recently shaken up the landscape with the much-loved (unless you were Japanese) Xbox 360 and both Sony and Nintendo were primed to bring out their next consoles; one of which would put a waggle-wand into the hand of damn near every man, woman and child, regardless of age, across the globe. The other, well, caused a midnight shopper or two to get shot. Again, that's some pretty powerful stuff.
Since then, it's been easy sailing for the world of gaming. While those who keep informed about the industry goings on know there are some choppy waters under the surface, the world has still become populated with more and more players as games have been injected into just about every facet of our daily lives.
For those who judge success in cold, hard dollars, here's a little statistic many may have forgotten: Back in 2008, global video game sales actually surpassed the movie industry. This is a business that rakes in around $50 billion a year, folks. If nobody is asking if movies are still relevant, how can anyone still question if video games are mainstream yet?
I would be interested in knowing the gaming history of the people asking these questions in the first place. My hunch is that we're probably talking about older gamers, such as myself, who have been at it for a couple of decades. Those who have been core gamers for a long period of time; the ones who still remember what it was like to be embarrassed whenever anyone found out they played video games. Gaming was their skeleton in the closet, it made them insecure, and now they want to make damn sure they're an official part of the in crowd before letting their freak flag fly proudly.
This shift in relevance has also been pushed along by key titles, consoles and public figures. Titles like Call of Duty and Madden are just as much to blame as the more commonly referenced Angry Birds or FarmVille. They made non-gamers into gamers by the millions. Now we've got a Wii in every household, folks like Jimmy Fallon turning games into a regular part of his television show, and Lil' Wayne rapping about cheat codes; all helping push gaming into its newfound normalcy.
And then there is the matter of cost, which could have also served as a barrier up until just a handful of years ago. Gaming ain't cheap, which means, until recently, only those who were really into the hobby were willing to save up their allowance to purchase the latest titles. Now free games launch on a variety of platforms daily, meaning anyone can at least dip their toe into the world of video games without a steep cost of entry getting in the way.
The video game industry saw its first major supreme court ruling earlier this year, so that's got to count for something, right? And, as I alluded to earlier, let's not forget about the rise of the "casuals" over the past few years, non-gamers being introduced to the hobby with simplistic titles available through Facebook and the like. And then there's the meteoric rise of mobile gaming, which basically means anyone with a half-decent phone in their pocket has a gaming machine just waiting to be played.
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And what about all this gamification we're seeing in our daily lives through social media? Thanks to the popularity of Achievements and Trophies, I can now broadcast my IRL accomplishments to the masses at the push of a button, letting everyone know how far I ran today, which book I just finished, where I'm drinking coffee and if I'm the mayor of my favorite pub. We all have this bizarre need to showcase our endeavors, which is in and of itself a very video game-like mindset.
Video games have come a long way since the days they were played in the basement, in secret, with a guilty rat gnawing at our gut for just how "nerdy" we were being. Today, you could walk down a street named after Super Mario, watch a movie based on Resident Evil, eat lunch at Subway with Nathan Drake staring back from your 32 oz. cup, take the kids to a park themed after Sonic the Hedgehog, and head to a sporting event where the crowd can take part in an Angry Birds-themed cellphone game on the jumbotron. On the way home, you could top off the gas tank at the local station and probably pick up a slurpee sporting the cast of your favorite first-person shooter.
So congratulations, gamers, your hobby has officially been integrated into modern society. Let's stop with the self-esteem drama and get back to actually playing those games. As for you comic book readers out there; sorry, but you're just as nerdy as you've ever been. Enjoy the wedgies.
Infinite Ammo is a weekly column by Ryan Winslett exploring video games, the industry that makes them and the people who play them. He can be stalked via his blog at staticechoes.com and followed on twitter @RyanWinslett. For the record, he also reads comic books and still says no to drugs.
Tags: casual gaming, GameCube, mobile gaming, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, slurpee, video games, Xbox, Xbox 360
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