10.4 The Impact of Video Games on Culture

An NPD poll conducted in 2007 found that 72 percent of the U.S. population had played a video game that year (Faylor, 2008).  The increasing number of people playing video games means that video games must have an undeniable effect on culture. This effect becomes visible in the increasing mainstream acceptance of aspects of gaming culture. Video games have also changed the production and consumption of many other forms of media, from music to film. 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 . As video games have increased their influence on culture, many have voiced their opinions on whether this form of media constitutes art.

Game Culture

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 rudimentary game compared to modern titles (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 spent time on consoles playing games and, more importantly, increasingly identifying with the characters and products associated with the games. Networks developed Saturday morning cartoons based on the Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. games, and game companies sold an array of nongame merchandise 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 demographic in retirement communities, where Wii Bowling became a popular form of entertainment for the residents  (Wischnowsky). The gradual increase in the average age of a gamer 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. People applied the term “Geek” to those 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 appealed to them because they both took place in a fantasy world and offered 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 a large number of people began to desire to improve their video game skills, the popular idea of geeks changed. The term “geek” can now mean a person who understands computers and technology. This former slur appears often 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 how this subculture has found acceptance by the mainstream. Geeks may have become “cooler,” but mainstream culture has also become “geekier.” The acceptance of geek culture has led to an acceptance of geek aesthetics. The mainstreaming of video games has led to a proliferation of fantasy or virtual worlds. This becomes 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 offer 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.

Television

Television programs based on video games like Pac-Man, Pole Position, and Q*bert started to appear in the early 1980s. In the later 1980s, programs 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, expanded into a television series, a card game, several movies, and even a musical (Internet Movie Database). Several programs revolve entirely around the concept of 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, has begun similarly rating video games. 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 has changed public perception to include video game playing as a habit similar to television watching.

Video games have also influenced the way networks produce television. The Rocket Racing League , which launched in 2011, features  a “virtual racetrack.” Racing jets travel along a virtual track that only pilots and spectators with enabled equipment can see. Not only that, spectators can race virtual jets alongside the ones flying in real time  (Hadhazy, 2010). This type of innovation can only exist with a public that has come to demand and rely on the kind of interactivity that video games provide.

Film

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 upon its release, and 15th overall for the year (Box Office Mojo). Films based on video games have become increasingly common sight at the box office, such as producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s Prince of Persia, or the recent sequel to Tron, based on the idea of a virtual gaming arena.

Another aspect of video games’ influence on films focuses on the marketing of video game releases and how audiences perceive them. The release date for the 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 seems misleading. Video games cost much more than a ticket to a movie, so higher sales do not mean that more people bought the game than watched the movie. Also, the distribution apparatus for the two media differs. Studios must release new movies in theaters, whereas a variety of retail outlets or online platforms can sell new video games (Associated Press, 2008). This kind of news story proves that the general public considers video games as something akin to a film. The scale of production and profit for video games has become 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

Music has accompanied video games ever since the days of the arcade. Video game music originally consisted of computer beeps turned into theme songs due to hardware and software limitations. The design of the Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, and Sony PlayStation made it possible to use sampled audio on new games, meaning they could record and use songs played on physical instruments in 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  have created 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 learn many of the same principles used for scoring films (Khan, 2010).

Many rock bands have allowed video games to use their previously recorded songs, similar to a hit song’s inclusion on a movie soundtrack. The bands receive payment for the rights to use the song and their music gains exposure to an audience that otherwise might not hear it. As mentioned earlier, games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have promoted bands. The release of The Beatles: Rock Band coincided with the release of digitally remastered reissues of the Beatles’ albums. Even genres not associated with music has featured modern popular music. Sports franchises like MLB’s The Show provide an original soundtrack of several songs in each new edition, and Grand Theft Auto V has an in-game radio station featuring original music.

Another phenomenon related 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. An orchestra and chorus called Video Games Live  started a tour in 2005 dedicated to playing well-known video game music. They often project graphics onto a screen showing relevant sequences from the video games during their performances (Play Symphony).

Video Games and Education

The increase of educational institutions that embrace video games demonstrates one sign of their mainstreaming. As early as the 1980s, games such as Number Munchers and Word Munchers helped 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 they found video game systems present in most households, kids favored learning through video games, and games could 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 played a first-person shooter game for one hour a day for 10 days and then took a test 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 embraced video games as well. The Boy Scouts of America have 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 has also promoted 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 U.S. Army and the Army National Guard have also used video games as recruiting  tools (Associated Press, 2003).

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

Video Games as Art

While universally accepted as a form of media, a debate has recently arisen over whether video games constitute a form of art. Roger Ebert, a well-known film critic, has historically argued that “video games can never be art,” framing video games as exercises of competition, whereas art only provides an experience (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 plots 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, built themselves around the idea of creation, requiring players to pull together a massive clump of objects to create a star.

Video games, once viewed as a mindless source of entertainment, have become featured subjects in publications such as The New Yorker magazine and The New York Times (Fisher, 2010). With the development of increasingly complex musical scores and the advent of machinima, the boundaries between video games and other forms of media have slowly blurred. While they may not have convinced everyone of their artistic merits, video games have contributed significantly to modern artistic culture.