Interesting article on MSN http://tech.uk.msn.com/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5521426 Why gaming became cool In a world where Premiership footballers brag about their PlayStation obsession, and rockstars pimp out their Humvees with Xboxes, there can be little doubt that gaming is cool. Once the exclusive territory of the young or the socially maladjusted – computers and consoles are now part of the mainstream media and rapidly spreading to become an industry larger than movies. Like most social trends it is impossible to pinpoint an exact point at which playing games became okay as an adult – although the seeds of the progression can be traced right back to a generation that started out on the likes of Spectrums and BBCs and made a critical choice. They decided they didn’t want growing up to exclude playing games. As a man rapidly approaching 30, I witnessed the social pressure to ‘put down my joystick’ (fnarr fnarr) as I passed puberty and concentrate my attentions on girls, football and my education. The thing was that I’d been concentrating on the first two as well as playing games for years, so why should I replace something fun with something serious when I could easily find time to do all four? Of course it wasn’t pleasant finding out that my prowess at Kick Off wasn’t going to win me any favours in the pub, where games playing was firmly stalled in the real world pursuits of pool and darts, but increasingly it became apparent to me that few of those who had worshipped at the altar of Atari and Amiga years earlier had actually stopped playing games – just stopped admitting it in public. Inevitably, it was the straightforward world of consoles that began to lift games-playing out of the basements and into a position of pride beneath the televisions. Sony’s PlayStation brought a level of sophistication to a hobby that was genuinely impressive enough to make people proud to be a gamer again, and when its successor the PS2 arrived with a built in DVD player that was both cheaper than many stand-alone players and looked more like an adult gadget than a plastic toy, attitudes had already begun to swing. By this point games were not solely for boys – although inevitably the audience was still largely male. Girls who had snuck in to play the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros were increasingly as demanding of their game time as their brothers and boyfriends, and the developers reacted at first with patronisation but increasingly with some degree of skill in making games that weren’t inherently based on destruction and confrontation. Socialists suggest that we have become increasingly infantile as a generation – far more driven by nostalgia and a desire to recreate the passions of our youth, and gaming is the perfect illustration of this. Television has long been the entertainment choice for those wanting to do something non-meaningful and pointless for an evening of fun – but gaming from the sofa became another option that was as, if not more, appealing to many. The media began to catch on when public figures began to ‘confess’ that they loved playing games. After treating the first wave of such people coming out of the gaming closet with disdain and scorn, the sheer numbers of people opting-in and, in then-Liverpool goalkeeper David James’ famous case, injuring themselves with their passion for consoles, made it clear that the long-held concept of computer gamers being fat nerds sat in their parents’ basement began to slip away. The western world in particular was becoming an increasingly technological nirvana – with gadgets sweeping into every home as another driving factor – the internet – increasingly dominated people’s working lives. The move into the home eventually witnessed the widespread disposal of 56k modems and a move to broadband – and added whole new factor in making games cool – a social world. One of the things that consoles had always handled well was multi-player gaming – albeit on a purely local level. The joy of games had always been divided between the solo pursuit of glory and the prospect of gathering a group of friends around to compete. The arrival of broadband suddenly brought the two areas together. Competing with people did not mean gathering your friends together – but merely logging on to a live service and finding other playing the same game. In the current generation gaming has come even further, thanks to the likes of Nintendo, whose Wii and DS have both opened out a market to a much broader audience of families and instilled a larger slice of accessibility into the mix. Whereas gamers had prided themselves on hours of skilled controller use suddenly, with the Wii, people could pick up a controller and wave it around without feeling foolish. Better than that, they could actually compete with their peers, regardless of how good they all were at Gears of War. I suppose, for me, gaming has never been anything but cool. I have always adored the interactivity and imagination of an industry that has become increasingly aware that its audience is both growing up and broadening. In some ways I think it was inevitable that everyone else would catch on – but it’s nice to find that admitting that I play games no longer makes me a social outcast.
Dude, "increasingly infantile"? just becos we dont want to join oscure underground groups of communist or fundamentalist origins to die for a cause thats actually a crackpot idea, like so many people did in the western world during the 60s, 70s and 80s, thats being "increasingly infantile"? If thats being infantile then I'm going back to watch Thundercats:nod:
I think it will still take time. I know when I tell people I make games & play games. Some still don't understand why and they look at me funny (still pisses me off). It's a multi-billion dollar industry yet people still think of pac-man when they hear video games.
I don't know, I never really go out of my way to tell people I play the occasional videogame. I definitely would not say it's a "cool" thing to do.
Sony made gaming cool. That is the simple fact. However, it's probably going to go out of fashion again.
During the 70s and very early 80s gaming was cool, it's just it was made more a toy as it was a bigger and easier market to get then trying to sell machines to 20+ year olds. Anyway most of the people that are now in their 30s and even 40s were the same young people of the quote "Once the exclusive territory of the young", so I'm not sure what they are trying to prove... footballers, rap stars, etc playing Xbox doesn't prove much as a lot of them probably played games consoles when they were young too... With game developement costing a lot more, a lot more sales are needed and by making games which will appeal to a bigger audience then more sales will be generated. Regardless of whether it's Grand Theft Auto aiming at young adults and getting kids wanting to buy the game or Wii Sports where even your Grandmother can play (Thanks Nintendo, just what I always wanted...)
"Socialists suggest that we have become increasingly infantile as a generation..." uhh... sociologists?
Word yo:nod::lol: Anyway, footballers and rap stars play games cuz companies pay them to do so, nuff said...
Same here. I work in company that's made up mostly of people older than me. They still view gaming as a childish past time.
