I used to think that writing about games was strictly only for reviews of the games themselves. Not what they represent or how they apply to society. This book has not only taught me a lot about the history of video games but how video games have evolved into more than just a source of entertainment. Video Games are microcosms of gaming culture during each decade the games were produced and released into the public.
In the 70's graphics were limited and video games were essentially in their infancy. So experiences like Pong and Space War were mind-blowing, especially in comparison to text-based games like Colossal Cave Adventure. But as the decades kept ticking forward, what society was looking for out of video games evolved. In the 80's with the birth of the Nintendo, the archaic and blocky graphics of the Atari age which were perfectly acceptable for the time became instant relics of the past.
The challenge of video games also increased with some games becoming longer and harder. They also started to spread to an even wider audience than before. With arcade quality games finally available on the home market. These games also enabled the people playing them to easily place themselves into the middle of the action with more humanoid sprites for them to relate to. Before in the 70's, graphical limitations made humanoid sprites nearly impossible. And any attempts to make them ended up looking like a blocky mess. Games for the Nintendo were different. Now gamers could see themselves as Mario or Link. Not a block or a series of blocks.
And as the 80's ended and the 90's began with the birth of the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, the graphical possibilities were beefed up and so was the blast processing. And a social status began to form around who had the SNES versus the Genesis. Other gaming systems also came into the fold trying to get a grip on this growing market, like the PlayStation. With each and every advancement in gaming technology and console, the possibilities became endless as to what kind of game the consumer could play. RPGs like Crono Trigger with ambitious graphics found their way to homes all across the world and into the hands of gamers who were thirsty for more games and different kinds of games. Video games had become no longer point and click, or side-scrollers. The aspect of player choice was added to the fray with the invention of RPGs and their success.
As games and gamers entered the new millennium, more and more new games and consoles poured into the market. PS2, XBox, Gamecube, the list goes on. And as the games and the consoles grew in popularity, gaming became more than just a little hobby that made some money on the side for developers and studios. It became a multi-million dollar enterprise that would eventually go into the billions. And with this new windfall, game developers were able to make even farther advances in graphics and technology and create 3D worlds that were more immersive than ever before and the gamers finally reached that point they had been searching for, the point of near reality. Where the games were no longer just colorful pixels on their television screens. But representations of the world around them. Simulation games like Madden became bigger than ever because unlike previous incarnations the games could now look almost like the real thing. With players looking like their exact likenesses and not stock figures like before. Gaming mechanics also shifted drastically and so did the controls.
Video Games were evolving and changing, not only just technologically, but socially as well. With the advent of online play, friends could play with each other without being in the same room, and other players gained access to the entire world and all different kinds of gamers from across the globe. Gamers were no longer isolated. The boxes were removed and they were able to walk outside of the boxes. Gamers also learned and evolved their knowledge of games to become game developers themselves. Making gaming even more inclusive as a result.
And despite the drastic changes that had occurred to video games over the past few decades, gamers and gaming culture have not been broken or scattered. They both have thrived and will continue to do so each and every year. New technology is created, graphical capabilities increase, new consoles are released, and controls become even more complicated. But gamers don't jump ship. They don't complain. They don't try to cling to the past. They go with the flow. Just like Andrew Ervin does in his book.
He evolved his usual style of writing fiction, into something truly special and unique. A book about video games that treats video games and the analysis of them like any other form of media. Like a film for instance. For years, film has been a constant in discussions about art, sociology, and analysis. Ervin and other authors like him take the same approach that writers do for film and film studies and apply it to video games. And just like the growing popularity of video games, the more and more books that are written about game theory and analysis, the more the parameters for writing about games shifts. Why can't video games be written about in the same way films are? Video games are arguably more popular now with the majority of society than films. It's a very welcome sight to see the prose evolving and the perception of video games as a whole evolving at the same rate games are themselves.
Bit by bit, the game has changed. The times they are a changin'.
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