Video Games as an accepted form of entertainment

[Zeostar]

How do you feel video games have progressed in terms of being accepted by society?

Personally, I don't think they've reached the societal acceptance of music/movies, but it's progressed beyond total negative stigma. Seems some of the older generation is still vocal about opinions regarding games, but I think as time passes it'll grow more and more into just being a normalized part of culture. The revenue that the gaming industry makes is already on par with other accepted forms of entertainment.

 

[Catgirl Rika]

I feel like there's way less stigma liking video games in general. Maybe not as a form of entertainment like movies and games as you stated. Felt like in school you'd get picked on for games you played or enjoyed such as Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and/or Story of Seasons. I have always been a single player person, so yeah. :P

 

[Devalue]

Believes it to be better, but not on par with movies and such. Suspects phones playing a decent role in this. Offered easy, on-the-go access to games like Candy Crush and Bejeweled. Killed time while waiting for whatever. (Hm. Wonders if newspapers diminishing played into this as well. Possibly read that or did the crosswords while waiting. Left a void as they died out.) Served as an introduction to gaming for people unfamiliar with games.

Could be a simple age thing too. Grew up with games, unlike generations in the past. Carried that interest into adulthood. Shifted game familiarity from 5% to 35% (to use completely made-up numbers) as the influence of older folks without that experience waned.

 

[Delta Crowned Sword]

I feel that people do enjoy playing games 🎮.

But then they are not comparable to movies/musics because doing these tasks literally requires no effort and human brain has tendency to prefer the tasks which are easy to do. Hence naturally the tasks where we just need to remain dumb and immerse via mind becomes easier form of entertainment.

______________

Personally speaking, I don't enjoy either of the three. Despite being born in this century, gaming never caught my attention as such.

Because from childhood, my parents introduced me into sports, hence sports became the form of entertainment for me, and it felt massively better than the games for those sports, as I was playing them in reality, and other kids appreciating my performance was real, and adding real-life medals 🏅 made that even more great.


My first ever game was Purple Place in Windows 7. And I came into Pokémon games around 2013-14, and played all the games starting from Fire Red to Ultra Sun on my desktop via Emulator. And played few other DS games as well via the same way.

Nowadays don't play the games because they are locked behind hardware. And it does no benefit that I need to import it.

And as @Devalue said, the easily available mobile games suited perfectly to me, as my sole need to play the games is to get some relaxation rather than achievement.




Still, whatever I said is based on my personal experience, and hence I cannot deny the fact that games are much better source of entertainment for many people.

 

[Setsuna]

Video Games are an art form and I think we're starting to see this being debated less and accepted more, and I'm super happy about that. People are creating new things and feel incredibly unique or really impressive or experiences that really leave an impression. Things like TV shows, movies, or music could not make me feel the way video games do because there's often more to the experience than just what the story is or a certain aspect of it, it's so multi-faceted. I still think about how the menus in Persona 5 looked, that stuff doesn't exist in the same form with other media.

I think there's been a pretty big boom in games being pushed towards younger players that have been really successful. A lot of popular casual games, things like Minecraft or Fortnite or that sort of thing have been getting tons of people into gaming and from that point they can grow up experiencing it or trying new things and a lot can come from that. I think a great example is seeing a ton of indie games being successful and having those creators outright admit "I was inspired by this game I played growing up" and it shows that these things have a strong impact on our society and they are things people enjoy and want to enjoy and create. People who are changing the world are inspiring others to change the world.

I'm too young to know what the early ages of video games were like, things like the 1983 crash and the way the industry built up from that, but my life has been full of interactions and relationships with people because of video games and that wouldn't exist had video games not become more and more popular and accepted. And I just think that's wonderful. Thank you for this thread.

 

[gimmepie]

While not quite on the level of movies and music yet, gaming definitely doesn't have the kind of stigma around it that it used to. People are even (finally) coming around to recognising that video games should be considered an artistic medium. As for why the change happened, there's a few reasons honestly.

The biggest one is just time. Partly because things tend to just become more tolerated with exposure and the industry has continued to grow and expand. Partly because as generations that grew up with games grow older and have kids of their own, they are creating households where it's an acceptable and even encouraged hobby.

Marketing also plays a part. Originally, games were mostly just marketed towards young boys. I'd say marketing is still maybe somewhat more targeted towards a male audience, but this has become less and less true. Now games of a huge variety exist, marketed towards all kids of people and as stigmas have lessened, marketing and social acceptability has broadened too.

I think Devalue's theory about phones and the internet is actually interesting too. It makes sense. I suspect the growing prevalence of good game adaptations in TV and film has also played a part.