8 Digital Gaming

“All your base are belong to us.” — CATS, villain from the Sega Genesis game Zero Wing

 

Digital Games are Stories Users Co-Create

When the “All your base” meme spread across the internet in late 2000 and early 2001, YouTube had not been invented yet. Web videos were slow to play when they played at all, and photoshopped images designed to create jokes or memes were relatively new. But something about the meme’s use of music, mashed-up photoshopped images and familiar real-world objects resonated with a generation of young adults who grew up with Japanese video games that sometimes had odd translations when they were reproduced for the American market. Users realized that the internet, a medium that functions as a convergence of all other media platforms, was capable of making us laugh and feel nostalgic. It was capable of transmitting culture.

Zero Wing, the video game at the heart of the meme, was a popular arcade game that was “ported” to (that is, recoded for) the Sega Genesis video game system in 1991. It was not the most popular arcade or SEGA game by any means, and yet something about the “All Your Base” meme was familiar to kids who grew up playing early home systems. The graphics were familiar. The orange background flashes were commonplace, as was the look of the cyborg villain. The hastily-translated Japanese-to-English text was not unusual for games of that era. If you had grown up in the 1980s and 1990s, it felt like part of your childhood had come back. Only this time there was an electronic music soundtrack and a collection of photoshopped images. Millions got the reference in what was one of the first internet memes to gain mainstream media attention.

Digital Gaming as Digital Culture

The meme’s intent may have been to make us laugh at the old games that some of us thought were cool as kids. We laughed at how much 8-bit and 16-bit graphics had enthralled us. Some remember how the gameplay had excited us and we might feel nostalgia for the 8-bit or “chiptune” music. (If you want, you can make your own chiptune music here.) In the 1980s and 1990s, video game culture was a leap for children who grew up watching television. It gave players control over the actions of characters on TV. It engaged individuals in intertextuality, and the quality improved as the immersion increased. The environments, tasks, graphics and music evolved. Game creators pulled users into the story. The text itself did not always have to make sense: You could still understand the story because you were part of the game.

Now there are digital games that allow us to build entire worlds for a tabletop Dungeons and Dragons game, a series of small towns in Minecraft, or a fully-functioning (or dysfunctional) city in a game such as City Skylines. The survival genre of games provides players with a world where they can build, fight, and strive to survive against the backdrop of a medieval, Viking, or even futuristic theme (see Conan Exiles, Minecraft, Valheim, etc.). We can remake games within games. Relatively affordable access and open platforms enable users to represent in the digital world almost every aspect of life in the tangible world.

As you turn a critical eye toward video games, begin to consider the norms, values, and beliefs connected to video games. How do they change based on the game’s genre (a casual story-driven game versus a massive multiplayer first-person shooter), platform (console, PC, mobile device), or player base (the ways plays of a game connect on other apps such as Discord). Video games contain a rich culture filled with themes on perceptions of society.

Narratives and Platforms

Video games — including arcade games, console games, mobile games, online-only games including MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), cloud gaming, and open environment games like Minecraft — all have narratives to follow and widely varying levels of production value. They rival films as the most immersive medium in mass communication, and they can be much more personal. Both films and video games have high production values and immersing narratives, but video games allow consumers to play as an avatar and interact with the story to change the plot and the environment (within limitations). Video games now make more than double what movies make globally at the box office. With the accessible platforms for games now, the nostalgia factor of older games can fade away as we can revisit the games from the past 30 years as well as see beloved games such as Minecraft and Roblox evolve as developers and players add to the game.

If you want to learn how to reach individuals with a mass-marketed product, look to video games for guidance. By building in gaming options, character customization, extra levels and maps, collaborative online gaming, mods, and, in the case of Minecraft, broad swathes of digital space where users can explore their creativity, the same games can create differentiated, personal experiences for millions of people. Mobile games built on GPS technology such as Ingress and Pokémon GO from Niantic are a hybrid of shared and individuated experiences. Pokémon trainers can see and catch the same Pokémon in the wild. They can collaborate to fight Pokémon in raids, but some rare variants are distributed randomly, which can give players an incentive to trade with one another and engage in the game’s social aspects. Video games have cracked the code of how to be both a mass media product and a personalized experience.

The personalized experience takes on an entirely new feel with virtual reality. Virtual reality devices create an encapsulating experience where a player can become immersed in the game similar to the world depicted in Free Guy or Ready Player One. The closest precedent for this might be when science fiction writers create universes with distinctive planets, atmospheres, topographies, sights, sounds, and even cultural norms and rules (as in the Star Trek universe, for example). “Choose Your Own” adventure books gave readers a chance to experience a level of choice in literature. Text-based games such as the Zork series gave computer users a similar experience. What we see now is an immersive graphical space with sights and sounds to match the imaginations of video game designers and developers. When a game is built to be its own creative digital platform or space where content can be created and shared, it becomes a space where much of the creative effort falls to the user. This can be viewed both as an opportunity and a responsibility.

Games and Behavior

Most of us who play video games enjoy a certain level of control. Video games are different from most forms of mass entertainment. Films, popular television shows, books and other works of creative fiction (besides the choose-your-own variety) tell you who the characters are, where they are located and what their capabilities and limitations are. In video games, you control your avatar. In role-playing games (RPGs) such as Dragon Age, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Divinity, players’ choices directly and deeply influence the narrative. Because these games offer a wide array of narrative paths, your choices create a varied gaming experience. While it is true that your choices in RPGs are always drawn from a finite set of options, the results of your in-game behavior give you a measure of power.There are game worlds where cultural norms within the game are quite close to those most people experience in the physical world. There are other games where most of your actions, even negative ones, are without consequences. It is not clear that consequence-free video games create a real-world culture where people do not care about ethics or values. Time and time again research has shown that violent video games have no direct correlation with violent behavior in the physical world. Games like the Grand Theft Auto series are usually considered an escape rather than an example of how to live. Additionally, many social science and health studies suggest that we do not take cues from violent video games and practice those same behaviors in our real lives. Some studies show correlations between gameplay and short-term thoughts of violence, but this type of research only addresses temporary changes in mood. Direct impacts on long-term behavior from specific video games do not appear frequently enough in sample populations of gamers to suggest that games cause violent or other antisocial behaviors.

Then again, the long-term social influence of deeply immersive, violent games may not be fully understood. Many researchers who work with cultivation theory think there is a long-term social effect of this type of media content and behavior, even if limited experiments, surveys and other research tools have failed to capture it. Following a researcher named George Gerbner, cultivation theory scholars often suggest that changing perceptions can change cultural values over time and that those changes can lead to long-term behavioral changes. The concern is that society over time has changed to become more accepting of anti-social behaviors. Historians might argue, but there are scholars who contend that based on our mass media environment we might expect, perhaps, to reap what we sow.

Behavioral Theory

Developed by Albert Bandura, social learning theory looks on its face like a “monkey-see-monkey- do” theory, but it goes deeper than suggesting we imitate the behaviors we see in the mass media. Bandura posits that our behavior creates an environment that then helps determine group and individual behavior. In other words, social learning theory seems to support the big picture concepts behind cultivation theory. Bandura’s argument is that the social environment shapes actual behavior and that messages in the mass media over time create the environment; however, the argument is not that media influence must shape behavior. Media influences often moderate or influence other behaviors that were already occurring.

Following social learning theory, we can imagine a dynamic where behavior shapes our social environment and, at the same time, our environment provides limits for acceptable behavior. The mass media dynamic is part of this bigger dynamic of social influence. If the idea of this dynamic is difficult to grasp, try thinking about a sports team. A team shapes each individual player’s behavior to some degree, but the players as individuals, pairs, and other groups-within-groups also influence the team, its mood, and the outcome of contests. Team influence and the environment of the group can set limits on individual behavior, but individuals are always free to excel or fail.

What does that leave us with? How do we reconcile the concepts of limited media effects with these ideas about how mass media — including many video games — shape the social environment? We have to place media effects in the broader context of the social sciences. In the study of social behavior, many factors including parents, friends, school, church, our neighborhoods, income level, opportunity and romantic relationships may influence our behavior, but they do not have to. It is not likely you will ever pin down a single cause for a certain behavior or set of behavioral trends. Instead, consider that there are many complex and sometimes chaotic social influences rather than causes. If you stop looking for causes, you can begin to look at which influences are stronger than others and how different social influences might act together to influence people. You might also consider your media environment and your own behavior as objects under your control and try to take responsibility for your consumption, your behavior and the relationship between the two.

Studying Video Games

Besides social influences, video games make a cultural impact as well. One way that culture is influenced by video games is through the narratives they tell. All sorts of video games create stories. Whether you are playing as a plumber trying to save a princess, working in a team to repair generators and escape a horror villain, building a world out of blocks with little backstory, or going on an epic quest in a realm where distinctive characters have their own motivations, there are commonalities between good video games and the narratives of classic literature and film. In narrative storytelling, there are elements such as setting, characters, plot and themes that combine to make meaning for readers, viewers or users. Video games deserve credit for crafting narratives often as intricate, emotionally gripping and revealing as other forms of creative production.

Here are some questions to ask about a given video game narrative: How much control does the design of the game exert over the player and the gameplay? Are you a single character or part of a team? What is your mobility within the game, and is that a feature of gameplay?

Game design sets the stage. The narrative is the story. The two work together, and, depending on your interests, one may interest you more than the other. If you view a video game with a critical eye, you can appreciate worlds, characters and plot twists and the effort that goes into game design. If you view a game primarily as a player would, you might only see it at face value as boring, fun, immersive, and so forth. You can use almost all of the terms you use to describe great films and novels to describe contemporary video games.

Often, game design is where technological genius comes into play. The way a game environment is built matters almost as much as what you do in a game; however, we have all seen a special effects movie that was only a special effects movie. If the story falls flat, we will probably not recommend the film to our friends. Conversely, video games that start with compelling stories but have poorly executed design and functionality may be almost unplayable. The best works create compelling worlds and stories.

As you study a video game’s narrative, gameplay, and impact, there are multiple ways to examine how messages are constructed in video games. For example, you could apply a mise-en-scene analysis by examining the arrangement of a scene or prominence of an aspect of the gameplay. Another approach could be taking a close look at the narrative through the hero’s journey. One could explain the impact of popular culture themes on gender, race, ethnicity, or sexuality by applying symbolic interactionism (see Chapter 3). Apply an intercultural communication lens by exploring norms, values, beliefs, and traditions in the game play through verbal and nonverbal communication. Think of studying video games as layers of an onion (Shrek anyone?). Consider which layer you want to examine and the type of rhetorical or other analysis to apply.

The Impact of Video Games on Culture

A survey by Statista found that 27 percent of adults are spending anywhere from one to five hours a week playing video games with 36% playing on a computer and 35% playing web or browser games. The increasing number of people playing video games means that video games are having an undeniable effect on culture. This effect is clearly visible in the increasing mainstream acceptance of aspects of gaming culture. Video games have also changed the way that many other forms of media, from music to film, are produced and consumed. Education has also been changed by video games through the use of new technologies that help teachers and students communicate in new ways through educational games such as Brain Age and Prodigy. As video games have an increasing influence on our culture, many have voiced their opinions on whether this form of media should be considered an art.

Game Culture

To fully understand the effects of video games on mainstream culture, it is important to understand the development of gaming culture, or the culture surrounding video games. Video games, like books or movies, have avid users who have made this form of media central to their lives. In the early 1970s, programmers got together in groups to play Spacewar!, spending a great deal of time competing in a game that was rudimentary compared to modern games (Brand). As video arcades and home video game consoles gained in popularity, youth culture quickly adapted to this type of media, engaging in competitions to gain high scores and spending hours at the arcade or with the home console.

In the 1980s, an increasing number of kids were spending time on consoles playing games and, more importantly, increasingly identifying with the characters and products associated with the games. Saturday morning cartoons were made out of the Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. games, and an array of nongame merchandise was sold with video game logos and characters. The public recognition of some of these characters has made them into cultural icons. A poll taken in 2007 found that more Canadians surveyed could identify a photo of Mario, from Super Mario Bros., than a photo of the current Canadian prime minister (Cohn & Toronto, 2007).

As the kids who first played Super Mario Bros. began to outgrow video games, companies such as Sega, and later Sony and Microsoft, began making games to appeal to older demographics. This has increased the average age of video game players, which was 35 in 2009 (Entertainment Software Association, 2009). The Nintendo Wii has even found a new demographic in retirement communities, where Wii Bowling has become a popular form of entertainment for the residents (Wischnowsky). The gradual increase in gaming age has led to an acceptance of video games as an acceptable form of mainstream entertainment.

The Subculture of Geeks

The acceptance of video games in mainstream culture has consequently changed the way that the culture views certain people. “Geek” was the name given to people who were adept at technology but lacking in the skills that tended to make one popular, like fashion sense or athletic ability. Many of these people, because they often did not fare well in society, favored imaginary worlds such as those found in the fantasy and science fiction genres. Video games were appealing because they were both a fantasy world and a means to excel at something. Jim Rossignol, in his 2008 book This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities, explained part of the lure of playing Quake III online:

Cold mornings, adolescent disinterest, and a nagging hip injury had meant that I was banished from the sports field for many years. I wasn’t going to be able to indulge in the camaraderie that sports teams felt or in the extended buzz of victory through dedication and cooperation. That entire swathe of experience had been cut off from me by cruel circumstance and a good dose of self-defeating apathy. Now, however, there was a possibility for some kind of redemption: a sport for the quick-fingered and the computer-bound; a space of possibility in which I could mold friends and strangers into a proficient gaming team (Rossignol, 2008).

Video games gave a group of excluded people a way to gain proficiency in the social realm. As video games became more of a mainstream phenomenon and video game skills began to be desired by a large number of people, the popular idea of geeks changed. It is now common to see the term “geek” used to mean a person who understands computers and technology. This former slur is also prominent in the media, with headlines in 2010 such as “Geeks in Vogue: Top Ten Cinematic Nerds (Sharp, 2010).”

Many media stories focusing on geeks examine the ways in which this subculture has been accepted by the mainstream. Geeks may have become “cooler,” but mainstream culture has also become “geekier.” The acceptance of geek culture has led to acceptance of geek aesthetics. The mainstreaming of video games has led to acceptance of fantasy or virtual worlds. This is evident in the popularity of film/book series such as The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Comic book characters, emblems of geek culture, have become the vehicles for blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man and The Dark Knight. The idea of a fantasy or virtual world has come to appeal to greater numbers of people. Virtual worlds such as those represented in the Grand Theft Auto and Halo series and online games such as World of Warcraft have expanded the idea of virtual worlds so that they are not mere means of escape but new ways to interact (Konzack, 2006).

The Effects of Video Games on Other Types of Media

Video games during the 1970s and ’80s were often derivatives of other forms of media. E.T., Star Wars, and a number of other games took their cues from movies, television shows, and books. This began to change in the 1980s with the development of cartoons based on video games, and in the 1990s and 2000s with live-action feature films based on video games. These stories continue to find their way into other types of media in the 2020s. Video game narratives both loyal to the original game or expanding on the world are presented to audiences with series such as Fallout (2024) and Halo (2022) and films like Borderlands (2024), Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023).  Fans of the original game will be glued to the screen to critique a show’s authenticity. Brand new audience members may stumble across a story they would have otherwise ignored if they do not play video games.

Television & Film

Television programs based on video games were an early phenomenon. Pac-Man, Pole Position, and Q*bert were among the animated programs that aired in the early 1980s. In the later 1980s, shows such as The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! and The Legend of Zelda promoted Nintendo games. In the 1990s, Pokémon, originally a game developed for the Nintendo Game Boy, was turned into a television series, a card game, several movies, and even a musical (Internet Movie Database). Several programs have been developed that revolve entirely around video games—the web series The Guild, for instance, tells the story of a group of friends who interact through an unspecified MMORPG.

Nielsen, the company that tabulates television ratings, also rates video games in a similar fashion. In 2010, this information showed that video games, as a whole, could be considered a kind of fifth network, along with the television networks NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox (Shields, 2009). Advertisers use Nielsen ratings to decide which programs to support. The use of this system is changing public perceptions to include video game playing as a habit similar to television watching. The Entertainment Software Association, an advocacy group for the video game industry, found that 212.6 million Americans played video games at least once a week in 2023. Not only are video games a habit, but their presence on television (and other mediums) make them a regular part of the popular culture zeitgeist for several decades.

The rise in film adaptations of video games accompanies the increased age of video game users. In 1995, Mortal Kombat, a live-action movie based on the video game, grossed over $70 million at the box office, placing it 22nd in the rankings for that year (Box Office Mojo). Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, released in 2001, starred well-known actress Angelina Jolie and ranked No. 1 at the box office when it was released, and 15th overall for the year (Box Office Mojo). Films based on video games are an increasingly common sight at the box office.

Another aspect of video games’ influence on films is how video game releases are marketed and perceived. The release date for anticipated game Grand Theft Auto IV was announced and marketed to compete with the release of the film Iron Man. Grand Theft Auto IV supposedly beat Iron Man by $300 million in sales. This kind of comparison is, in some ways, misleading. Video games cost much more than a ticket to a movie, so higher sales does not mean that more people bought the game than the movie. Also, the distribution apparatus for the two media is totally different. Movies can only be released in theaters or streaming platforms, whereas video games can be sold at any retail outlet (Associated Press, 2008). What this kind of news story proves, however, is that the general public considers video games as something akin to a film. It is also important to realize that the scale of production and profit for video games is similar to that of films. Video games include music scores, actors, and directors in addition to the game designers, and the budgets for major games reflect this. Grand Theft Auto IV cost an estimated $100 million to produce (Bowditch, 2008).

Music

Video games have been accompanied by music ever since the days of the arcade. Video game music was originally limited to computer beeps turned into theme songs. The design of the Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, and Sony PlayStation made it possible to use sampled audio on new games, meaning songs played on physical instruments could be recorded and used on video games. Beginning with the music of the Final Fantasy series, scored by famed composer Nobuo Uematsu, video game music took on film score quality, complete with full orchestral and vocal tracks. This innovation proved beneficial to the music industry. Well-known musicians such as Trent Reznor, Thomas Dolby, Steve Vai, and Joe Satriani were able to create the soundtracks for popular games, giving these artists exposure to new generations of potential fans (Video Games Music Big Hit, 1997). Composing music for video games has turned into a profitable means of employment for many musicians. Schools such as Berklee College of Music, Yale, and New York University have programs that focus on composing music for video games. The students are taught many of the same principles that are involved in film scoring (Khan, 2010).

Many rock bands have allowed their previously recorded songs to be used in video games, similar to a hit song being used on a movie soundtrack. The bands are paid for the rights to use the song, and their music is exposed to an audience that otherwise might not hear it. As mentioned earlier, games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have been used to promote bands. The release of The Beatles: Rock Band was timed to coincide with the release of digitally remastered reissues of the Beatles’ albums.

Another phenomenon relating to music and video games involves musicians covering video game music. A number of bands perform only video game covers in a variety of styles, such as the popular Japanese group the Black Mages, which performs rock versions of Final Fantasy music. Playing video game themes is not limited to rock bands, however. An orchestra and chorus called Video Games Live started a tour in 2005 dedicated to playing well-known video game music. Their performances are often accompanied by graphics projected onto a screen showing relevant sequences from the video games (Play Symphony).

Machinima

The connection between video games and other media has increased with the popularity of machinima, animated films and series created by recording character actions inside video games. Beginning with the short film “Diary of a Camper,” filmed inside the game Quake in 1996, fans of video games have adopted the technique of machinima to tell their own stories. Although these early movies were released only online and targeted a select niche of gamers, professional filmmakers have since adopted the process, using machinima to storyboard scenes and to add a sense of individuality to computer-generated shots. This new form of media is increasingly becoming mainstream, as TV shows such as South Park and channels such as MTV2 have introduced machinima to a larger audience (Strickland).

Streaming

Getting stuck on a level in the 1980s and 90s meant spending hours trying to solve an impossible puzzle (see Sega Genesis’ 1994 The Lion King), finding a friend who is amazing at gameplay, or purchasing a guidebook for help. The ability to quickly Google the answer, find a helpful video guide on YouTube, or watch a streamer on Twitch creates a new level of community around video games.

A 2024 report by Statista found that people watched 1.35 trillion minutes of content on Twitch. As streaming continues to grow in popularity, universities and colleges are now offering courses on how to stream using software such as Open Broadcasters Software Studio, StreamLabs, and Twitch Studio. Want to play video games as a career? Streaming changed the way we watch and consume video games. Streamers such as summit1g, Pokimane, Ninja, and PewDiePie, carved out full-time careers creating content of their gameplay. The live-streaming platform Twitch enhances these community connections as viewers interact with the streamer and others via the chat. The advent in popularity of live-game content epitomized by Critical Role (Dungeons and Dragons) emphasize the versatility of Twitch.

Another aspect of the culture around streaming involves raising money or awareness for charities. For example, the American Red Cross, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Doctors Without Borders have hosted livestreaming events where players unite to discuss the fundraising needs while playing games such as Farming Simulator or Ark.

Video Games and Education

One sign of the mainstreaming of video games is the increase of educational institutions that embrace them. As early as the 1980s, games such as Number Munchers and Word Munchers were designed to help children develop basic math and grammar skills. In 2006, the Federation of American Scientists completed a study that approved of video game use in education. The study cited the fact that video game systems were present in most households, kids favored learning through video games, and games could be used to facilitate analytical skills (Feller, 2006). Another study, published in the science journal Nature in 2002, found that regular video game players had better developed visual-processing skills than people who did not play video games. Participants in the test were asked to play a first-person shooter game for 1 hour a day for 10 days, and were then tested for specific visual attention skills. The playing improved these skills in all participants, but the regular video game players had a greater skill level than the non–game players. According to the study, “Although video-game playing may seem to be rather mindless, it is capable of radically altering visual attention processing (Green & Bavelier, 2003).”

Other educational institutions have begun to embrace video games as well. The Boy Scouts of America created a “belt loop,” something akin to a merit badge, for tasks including learning to play a parent-approved game and developing a schedule to balance video game time with homework (Murphy, 2010). The federal government saw the educational potential of video games. A commission on balancing the federal budget suggested a video game that would educate Americans about the necessary costs of balancing the federal budget (Wolf, 2010). The military has similarly embraced video games as training simulators for new soldiers. These simulators, working off of newer game technologies, present several different realistic options that soldiers could face on the field. The games have also been used as recruiting tools by the U.S. Army and the Army National Guard (Associated Press, 2003).

The ultimate effect of video game use for education, whether in schools or in the public arena, means that video games have been validated by established cultural authorities. Many individuals still resist the idea that video games can be beneficial or have a positive cultural influence, but their embrace by educational institutions has given video games validation.

Video Games and Art

While universally accepted as a form of media, a debate has recently arisen over whether video games can be considered a form of art. Roger Ebert, the well-known film critic, has historically argued that “video games can never be art,” citing the fact that video games are meant to be won, whereas art is meant to be experienced (Ebert, 2010).

His remarks have generated an outcry from both video gamers and developers. Many point to games such as 2009’s Flower, in which players control the flow of flower petals in the wind, as examples of video games developing into art. Flower avoids specific plot and characters to allow the player to focus on interaction with the landscape and the emotion of the game-play (That Game Company). Likewise, more mainstream games such as the popular Katamari series, released in 2004, are built around the idea of creation, requiring players to pull together a massive clump of objects in order to create a star.

Video games, once viewed as a mindless source of entertainment, are now being featured in publications such as The New Yorker magazine and The New York Times (Fisher, 2010). Artwork from and inspired by video games can be purchased online, at conventions, and viewed in museums such as the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington. With the development of increasingly complex musical scores and the advent of machinima, the boundaries between video games and other forms of media are blurring. While they may not be considered art by everyone, video games have contributed significantly to modern artistic culture.

Controversial Issues

The increasing realism and expanded possibilities of video games has inspired a great deal of controversy. However, even early games, though rudimentary and seemingly laughable nowadays, raised controversy over their depiction of adult themes. Although increased realism and graphics capabilities of contemporary video games have increased the shock value of in-game violence, international culture has been struggling to come to terms with video game violence since the dawn of video games.

Violence

Violence in video games has been controversial from their earliest days. Death Race, an arcade game released in 1976, encouraged drivers to run over stick figures, which then turned into Xs. Although the programmers claimed that the stick figures were not human, the game was controversial, making national news on the TV talk show Donahue and the TV news magazine 60 Minutes. Video games, regardless of their realism or lack thereof, had added a new potential to the world of games and entertainment: the ability to simulate murder.

The enhanced realism of video games in the 1990s accompanied a rise in violent games as companies expanded the market to target older demographics. A great deal of controversy exists over the influence of this kind of violence on children, and also over the rating system that is applied to video games. There are many stories of real-life violent acts involving video games. The 1999 Columbine High School massacre was quickly linked to the teenage perpetrators’ enthusiasm for video games. The families of Columbine victims brought a lawsuit against 25 video game companies, claiming that if the games had not existed, the massacre would not have happened (Ward, 2001). In 2008, a 17-year-old boy shot his parents after they took away his video game system, killing his mother (Harvey, 2009). Also in 2008, when six teens were arrested for attempted carjacking and robbery, they stated that they were reenacting scenes from Grand Theft Auto (Cochran, 2008).

There is no shortage of news stories that involve young men committing crimes relating to an obsession with video games. The controversy has not been resolved regarding the influences behind these crimes. Many studies have linked aggression to video games; however, critics take issue with using the results of these studies to claim that the video games caused the aggression. They point out that people who enact video-game–related crimes already have psychopathic tendencies, and that the results of such research studies are correlational rather than causational—a naturally violent person is drawn to play violent video games (Adams, 2010). Other critics point out that violent games are designed for adults, just as violent movies are, and that parents should enforce stricter standards for their children.

The problem of children’s access to violent games is a large and complex one. Video games present difficult issues for those who create the ratings. One problem is the inconsistency that seems to exist in rating video games and movies. Movies with violence or sexual themes are rated either R or NC-17. Filmmakers prefer the R rating over the NC-17 rating because NC-17 ratings hurt box office sales, and they will often heavily edit films to remove overly graphic content. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), rates video games. The two most restrictive ratings the ESRB has put forth are “M” (for Mature; 17 and older; “may contain mature sexual themes, more intense violence, and/or strong language”) and “AO” (for Adults Only; 18 and up; “may include graphic depictions of sex and/or violence”). If this rating system were applied to movies, a great deal of movies now rated R would be labeled AO. An AO label can have a devastating effect on game sales; in fact, many retail outlets will not sell games with an AO rating (Hyman, 2005). This creates a situation where a video game with a sexual or violent scene as graphic as the ones seen in R-rated movies is difficult to purchase, whereas a pornographic magazine can be bought at many convenience stores. This issue reveals a unique aspect of video games. Although many of them are designed for adults, the distribution system and culture surrounding video games is still largely youth-oriented.

Video Game Addiction

Another controversial issue is the problem of video game addiction. As of the print date, the American Medical Association (AMA) has not created an official diagnosis of video game addiction, citing the lack of long-term research. However, the AMA uses the term “video game overuse” to describe video game use that begins to affect other aspects of an individual’s life, such as relationships and health. Studies have found that socially marginalized people have more of a tendency to overuse games, especially online role-playing games like World of Warcraft. Other studies have found that patterns of time usage and social dysfunction in players who overuse games are similar to those of other addictive disorders (Khan, 2007).

Groups such as Online Gamers Anonymous have developed a 12-step program similar to that of Alcoholics Anonymous to help gamers deal with problems relating to game overuse. This group is run by former online gamers and family members of those affected by heavy game use (On-line Gamers Anonymous). This problem is not new, but it has become more prevalent. In the early 1990s, many stories surfaced of individuals dropping out of college or getting divorced because of addiction to MUDs (Greene, 1998). In addition, heavy video gaming, much like heavy computer use in an office setting, can result in painful repetitive stress injuries. Even worse are the rare, but serious, cases of death resulting from video game overuse. In the early ’80s, two deaths were linked to the video game Berzerk. The players, both in their late teens, suffered fatal heart attacks while struggling to achieve top scores (Arcade History). The issue of video game addiction has become a larger one because of the ubiquity of video games and Internet technology. In countries that have a heavily wired infrastructure, such as South Korea, the problem is even bigger. In 2010, excessive game use was problematic enough that the South Korean government imposed an online gaming curfew for people under the age of 18 that would block certain sites after midnight. This decision followed the death of a 3-month-old baby from starvation while her parents played an online game at an Internet café (Cain, 2010).

Another side of video game addiction is told well by Jim Rossignol in his book This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities. The book describes Rossignol’s job as a journalist for a financial company and his increasing involvement with Quake III. Rossignol trained a team of players to compete in virtual online tournaments, scheduling practices and spending the hours afterward analyzing strategies with his teammates. His intense involvement in the game led to poor performance at his job, and he was eventually fired. After being fired, he spent even more time on the game, not caring about his lack of a job or shrinking savings. The story up to this point sounds like a testimonial about the dangers of game addiction. However, because of his expertise in the game, he was hired by a games magazine and enjoyed full-time employment writing about what he loved doing. Rossignol does not gloss over the fact that games can have a negative influence, but his book speaks to the ways in which gaming—often what would be described as obsessive gaming—can cause positive change in people’s lives (Rossignol).

Sexism

In the past, young adult men made up the majority of video gamers. A study in 2009 found that 60 percent of gamers were male, and the average age of players was 35 (Entertainment Software Association, 2009). As of 2023, 53% of video games identify as male and 46% identify as female (Entertain Software Association, 2024). While the gender gap has certainly narrowed in the past 30 years, video gaming is still in many ways a male-dominated medium.

Male influence can be seen throughout the industry. Women make up 30 percent of game designers and programmers, and those who do enter the field often find themselves facing subtle—and not so subtle—sexism (Media Awareness Network). Over a decade ago, when Game Developer magazine released its list of top 50 people in the video game industry for 2010, bloggers were quick to note that no female developers appeared in the list (Doctorow, 2010). In 2007, scandal erupted over a pornographic comic featuring Jade Raymond, current managing director of the French video game publisher Ubisoft, that surfaced on an online forum. The motivation behind the comic was to allege that Raymond did not deserve her position at Ubisoft because she earned it based on her looks, rather than on her abilities and experience.

Sexism in video games has existed since the early days of the medium. The plot of the racist and sexist game Custer’s Revenge, released for the Atari 2600 in 1982, centered on the rape of a Native American woman. Popular NES games such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda featured a male figure rescuing a damsel in distress. Both the protagonist and antagonist in the original Tomb Raider game had hourglass figures with prominent busts and nonexistent waists, a trend that continues in the franchise today. In 2003, the fighting series Dead or Alive released a spin-off game titled Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball that existed to showcase the well-endowed female characters in swim attire (Strauss, 2010). The spin-off was so popular that two more similar games were released.

Some note that video games are not unique in their demeaning portrayal of women. Like movies, television, and other media forms, video games often fall back on gender stereotyping in order to engage consumers. Defenders point out that many male video game characters are also depicted lewdly. Games such as God of War and Mortal Kombat feature hypersexualized men with bulging muscles and aggressive personalities who rely on their brawn rather than their brains. How are men affected by these stereotypes? Laboratory studies have shown that violence and aggression in video games affect men more than women, leading to higher levels of male aggression (Bartholow & Anderson, 2002). While sexism is certainly present in video games, it seems sexual stereotyping affects both genders negatively.

As the years went on, game designers sought to move away from clichéd representations of gender. The popular game Portal, released in 2007, features a female protagonist clad in a simple orange jumpsuit who relies on her wits to solve logic puzzles. Series such as Half-Life and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney star male heroes who are intellectuals instead of warriors. Other games, like the Mass Effect series and Halo: Reach, allowed gamers to choose the gender of the main character without altering elements of the plot or game-play. However, despite recent strides forward, there is no doubt that as the video game industry continues to evolve, so too will the issue of gender.

Blurring the Boundaries Between Video Games, Information, Entertainment, and Communication

Early video games were easily identifiable as games. They had basic goals and set rules of play. As games have developed in complexity, they have allowed for newer options and an expanded idea of what constitutes a game. At the same time, the aesthetics and design of game culture have been applied to tools and entertainment phenomena that are not technically games. The result is a blurring of the lines between games and other forms of communication, and the creation of new means of mixing information, entertainment, and communication.

Video Games and the Social World of Sports

Video games have developed in complexity and flexibility to the point that they are providing new kinds of social interactions. This is perhaps clearest when games are compared to physical sports. Most of the abstract reasons for involvement in sports—things like teamwork, problem solving, and leadership—are also reasons to play video games that allow online team interaction. Sports are often portrayed as a social platform where people can learn new skills. Amateur sports teams provide an important means of socialization and communication for many people, allowing individuals from different gender, ethnic, and class backgrounds to find a common forum for communication. Video games have similar capacities; players who engage in online team battles must communicate with one another effectively and learn to collectively solve problems. In fact, video games could arguably provide a more inclusive platform for socializing because they do not exclude most socially or physically challenged individuals. The social platform of online games is certainly no utopia, as competitive endeavors of any sort inevitably create opportunities for negative communication, but it allows people of different genders, races, and nationalities to play on equal footing, a feat that is difficult, if not impossible, in the physical realm.

Virtual Worlds and Societal Interaction

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, EverQuest, Conan Exiles, and EVE Online allow for an unprecedented variety of goals to be pursued. According to one study on online communities, “that means games are no longer meant to be a solitary activity played by a single individual. Instead, the player is expected to join a virtual community that is parallel with the physical world, in which societal, cultural, and economical systems arise” (Zaphiris, et. al., 2008).

MMORPGs can function as a kind of hybrid of social media and video games in this respect. In some instances, these games could function entirely as social media, and not as games. Consider a player who has no desire to achieve any of the prescribed goals of a game, such as going on quests or accomplishing tasks. This individual could simply walk around in social areas and talk to new people. Is the player still playing a game at this point, or has the game turned into a type of social media?

Virtual worlds such as Second Life are good examples of the thin line between games and social media. In this virtual world, users create avatars to represent themselves. They can then explore the world and take part in the culture that characterizes it. The Second Life website FAQ (frequently asked questions) tries to illustrate the differences between a virtual world and a video game:

“While the Second Life interface and display are similar to most popular massively multiplayer online role playing games (or MMORPGs), there are two key, unique differences:
Creativity: The Second Life virtual world provides almost unlimited freedom to its Residents. This world really is whatever you make it. If you want to hang out with your friends in a garden or nightclub, you can. If you want to go shopping or fight dragons, you can. If you want to start a business, create a game or build a skyscraper you can. It’s up to you.
Ownership: Instead of paying a monthly subscription fee, Residents can start a Basic account for FREE. Additional Basic accounts cost a one-time flat fee of just $9.95. If you choose to get land to live, work and build on, you pay a monthly lease fee based on the amount of land you have. You also own anything you create—Residents retain intellectual property rights over their in-world creations.” (Second Life)

Virtual worlds may differ from traditional video games in key ways, but these differences will likely be further blurred as games develop. Regardless of the way these worlds are classified, they are based heavily on the aesthetics and design of video games.

Virtual worlds are societies in which communication can be expanded to relay information in ways that cannot be done with other forms of media. Some universities set up virtual classrooms in Second Life that employed techniques for teaching that are otherwise impossible. Curriculum was set up to take advantage of the virtual world’s creative capacity (Kluge & Riley, 2008). For example, a class on architecture could lead students through a three-dimensional recreation of a Gothic cathedral, a history class could rely on an interactive battlefield simulation to explain the mechanics of a famous battle, or a physics class could use simulations to demonstrate important principles.

Virtual worlds have been used to relay new kinds of information as well. In 2007, specialists developed virtual-reality simulations to help patients with Asperger’s syndrome navigate through social situations. Individuals with Asperger’s syndrome have difficulty recognizing nonverbal cues and adapting to change. The simulations allowed these patients to create avatars that then played out social situations such as job interviews. The simulations could be adjusted to allow for more complicated interactions, and the users could replay their own performances to better understand the simulation (University of Texas at Dallas News Center, 2008). The creation of avatars and the ability to replay scenes until the user improves performance is a direct influence of video games.

Social Media and Games

Social media outlets have also used video games to expand their communication platforms. FarmVille, a game in which players plant, harvest, and sell crops and expand their farm plots with the profits, is integrated with Facebook so that all users can connect with their real-life friends in the game. The game adds another aspect of communication—one centered on competition, strategy, and the aesthetics of game-play—to the Facebook platform. In 2010, FarmVille had 80 million users, an unprecedented number of people playing a single game. Other games for Facebook include Lexulous (formerly Scrabulous), a game that mimicked the board game Scrabble closely enough that it had to be changed, and Pet Society, a game that allows users to raise virtual animals as pets. These games are unique in their demographic scope; they seek to engage literally anyone. By coupling games with social media sites, game designers have pushed the influence of video games to unprecedented levels (Walker, 2010).

Due to the increasing popularity of video games, many social networking websites have emerged in recent years that target hard-core gamers and casual gamers alike. The website GamingPassions.com describes itself as a “free online dating and social networking site for the Video Gaming community” that “allows you to meet other video game lovers who ‘get it (Gaming Passions).’” Others, such as DateCraft, target players who share a love of specific games, such as World of Warcraft. These websites allow players to socialize outside of the confines of a video game and provide a way for fans of any game to connect (Fawkes, 2010).

Mobile Phones and Gaming

The maker of FarmVille, a company called Zynga, has released a number of social networking games that can be played via Internet-enabled mobile phones. Mafia Wars, a simulated version of organized crime that originated as an online game, lets users manage their money and complete jobs from their mobile phones. This innovation is only a change of platform from the computer to the phone, but it promises to make gaming a common means of social interaction.

Phones are used to communicate directly with another person, whether through text messages, Facebook posts, or phone calls. Adding games to phones creates a new language that people can use to communicate with each other. One can imagine the ways in which a spat between friends or a couple hooking up could be communicated through this medium. During the week of Valentine’s Day in 2010, the creators of FarmVille reported that users sent more than 500 million copies of virtual gifts to each other (Ingram, 2010). Competition, aggression, hostility, as well as generosity and general friendliness are given new means of expression with the addition of video games to the mobile platform.

In 2016 with the release of the augmented reality game Pokémon Go, users were seen roaming in parks, malls, and other public spaces in an attempt to catch their favorite Pokémon. Using their mobile phone, a map of the world appeared with the pocket monsters ready to challenge a player to catch them, train them, and even use them to take over gyms (arenas where Pokémon battle). Players could join three teams, build friends lists, and even send one another gifts.

Mobile games continue to evolve to this day. Take a look through the app store on your phone. Role playing, simulation, board, strategy, adventure, and other games can be downloaded and enjoyed anywhere. On newer devices, these games can offer a visually rich design and immersive experience.

Video Games and Their Messages

An important genre of games is often overlooked when focusing on the overall history and effect of video games. These games are created to get a specific point across to the player, and are generally low-budget efforts by individuals or small groups. The group Molleindustria puts out a host of these games, including Oligarchy, a game in which the player is an oil-drilling business executive who pursues corruption to gain profits, or Faith Fighter, in which religious icons fight each other (Industria). Downing Street Fighter is a similar game, designed as a satirical representation of the United Kingdom’s 2010 elections (Verjee, 2010).

Other games have included a great deal of content that informs players about current events. One example is Cutthroat Capitalism, where users play the part of Somali pirates who are carrying out kidnapping and piracy missions. The player must weigh the risks and rewards of their exploits given a variety of economic factors (Carney, 2009). This game allows players to understand the forces at work behind international phenomena such as piracy. Other games include the Redistricting Game, a game aimed at encouraging congressional redistricting reform, and Planet Green Game, in which players find ways to conserve energy (McGervan, 2007). These games’ publishers have used their medium to transmit information in new ways. Political satire in the medium of the video game allows the player to, in effect, play a satirical joke to its logical conclusion, exploring the entire scope of the joke. Advocacy games engage players with an interactive political message, rather than sending out traditional media ads. Mainstream groups such as PETA have also turned to video games to convey messages. During the 2008 Thanksgiving season, the animal-rights group released a parody of the popular Cooking Mama games to demonstrate the cruelty of eating meat (Sliwinski, 2008).

Although games of this type are not in a league with game series like Halo—either in design or in popularity—they are pushing the boundaries of the video game as a form of media. Political pamphlets were a major source of information and political discourse during the American Revolution. Video games may well come to serve a similar informational function.

Some games encourage the player to critically think about how their decisions impact the game’s world. Bioshock tackles the compatibility of free will, genetic altering, and moral decision-making in an underwater world. Players can choose to save or eliminate “little sisters,” which changes their experience at the end of the game. Other games with honor systems such as the Red Dead Redemption series change the narrative and options presented to the player. Whether they are deemed wanted with a bounty on their head or achieve a kinder ending, these decisions impact the overall gaming experience and can encourage critical thinking skills.