As I sit here, and look back on my childhood. I realize I have come so far. I have grown and matured. Yet I also look at my favorite hobby. Which happens to be gaming. In the span of twenty years I have seen video games change drastically. I watched as they went from sixteen bit to thirty-two bit. I have watched them go from a purely single player experiences to what we know now as MMO's. I also watched as every thing changed when programmers began to render things in three dimensions. That being said though. Has the video game industry actually grown to keep up with the aging gamer? Has the industry tried to reach out to other age groups or has it just stuck with the basic eleven to twenty year old male?
To answer any of those questions, you have to look back at where gaming started. Gaming had humble beginnings in 1958. With a game that was like tennis, or what we know today as pong. The two player aspect of this game made it a huge innovation and a leap forward in technology.
As time went on though gaming has changed in many ways. We had the Magnavox Oddyssey and the Atari 2600. To what we now have. Such as the Xbox One and the Sony Playstation 4. The graphics may have changed but the purpose is still the same. To entertain people and to have them happy with the product. To keep them coming back for more. It's all about branding and the ability to get the best games on the platform.
With these changes though have come separation between gamers. Some prefer gaming on a specific console or computer. Where others only play on the opposite. This division has caused many games to be exclusive to specific platforms. Which makes it harder to be a gamer. The price tag for a console now is in the hundreds of dollars where as gaming on a PC can very from the same amount as a console to thousands of dollars just to be able to play the latest games.
We went from having games that were a single genre which was sports, to what we have today. Now we have multiple MMO's, RPG's, and FPS's in genres such as fantasy, horror, survival, puzzle, strategy, battle arenas, and any number of combinations of those. Games aren't just a single genre anymore. For example, World of Warcraft, (or WOW) has fantasy, the massively-multi-player aspect, and RPG leveling. Compared to Pong, which was just a tennis game, with points, with no character levels.
With so many new games, and genres available now, gamers can be anyone. The industry as a whole is reaching out to the kids next door, your brother, the 87 year old grandmother down the street. You name a person, and there is probably a game out that they would be interested in playing.
That being said though since anyone can be a gamer. It does deter some gamers from playing on all platforms. Not everyone has the money to buy a new console every seven to ten years. That is also one of the many things causing the separation of gamers as a whole. The price tag to continue being able to play the latest games. Or the ability to buy the new console or PC.
Looking back at how much games have changed in the past twenty years, how much will they change in the next twenty years?
In the comments below let me know what you think. What would you like to see happen in the gaming industry?
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