By Matthew Szlapka
The history of Video Games was a long and arduous climb for the media giant of today, and it created the kind of person who involve themselves into the genre on a fanatical basis; the gamer became the icon for the franchise, as the fascination started in the local arcades. During the seventies and eighties, people were so skilled at the game of Asteroids that they were thrown out of arcades for hogging the systems. Their accomplishments were left in the twenty-five cent machine, their hallmarks gracing the leaderboard for ages to come, which led to more and more people obsessing to attain the same goal with a joystick and two buttons. The population grew ever larger, seeking to outdo to competition in a battle for supremacy. Quarters were placed in those slots, and the arcades realized what Asteroids, along with the three to four other games released at the time, were able to bring out from such a small amount of time. A media giant had taken its first steps.
Back then, the individual gamer itself is still similar to the gamer today; A young man or woman, in fewer cases sadly, who bought a pizza pie at the corner store while his fingers moved over the joystick and buttons, or the trackball, or the (modified) driving wheel which allows for too quick a turn. Friends and fellow gamers looked on as the score began to skyrocket in the player’s screen, as they shouted strategies and suggestions to them, taken with varying amounts of thanks or dismay. All that chatter stopped as the numbers continue to grew higher and higher until the novelty breaks when the ship is destroyed. It was their last life; the group fans out to other systems, but the gamer isn’t there for the fanbase. He puts another quarter into the slot, chokes down another slice of pizza, and it starts again. Games appealed to the want for adventure or being the hero; Who wouldn’t want to be the one man or woman who had the ability to save humanity from Space Invaders or save the girl from the giant ape in Donkey Kong?
The home console, which was introduced in the 1977 changed everything. As soon as the Atari 2600 came onto the scene with its list of games, the gamer evolved from a high-schooler who went to the boardwalk arcade to dump a couple quarters into a large machine to one who never left the house. The gamer worked hard for the twenty bucks to buy a black cartridge with artwork on the front, place it into their Atari 2600, and played for hours on end. The joystick which gave the person control came home, and they felt as if they were helping ET phone home to his family, or driving a sword through a dragon’s chest in one strike (Adventure).
In the present day, graphics from the 2600 were far below the normal parameters for a powerful gaming system, but these were the foundation from which all games came to be; the place, time, and the systems and games involved are affectionately labeled as “old-school.” Without these landmarks, such as the well-known Nintendo Entertainment System, the arcade games by Namco and Midway, and the straight-line Vector graphics of the late seventies, the industry and concept of gaming would cease to exist. They were the inspiration and the foundation for all designers and developers and are respected as such.
Like all forms of media, the gaming industry has its legends. These designers and composers, such as Shigeru Miyamoto and Nobou Uematsu, were respected and revered not only as inventors of incredible games, but as works of art. Japanese legends were the most prominent although the industry was originally a American product because of their incredible imagination and work ethic which was evident in their fast cars, memorable children’s toys, and collectable card games with beautiful designs. Once the Nintendo - the Fanicom in
Today, the gaming industry has thrived with a long, successful run of systems, arcade machines, and broad online-based games which began in the mid-nineties. The gamer has evolved once again in change with the growing industry, but it has also alienated itself by creating a fixed line between games, the preferred gamer to that game, and their personal interest; the athletic guy generally finds the shooters and sports games well within his sense of machismo, and never gives the in-depth storyline and development of an RPG any thought. Conversely, any fantasy nerd is sure to find Madden 2007 just as unappealing, turning on Final Fantasy XII instead.
The modern gamer has been involved with a even greater evolutionary flaw; the technical superiority and fascination with newer games, coupled with neglect of older games which brought the franchise to its current glory. New gamers have no interest in the games which made gaming a powerful and well-developed media franchise to begin with; showing no respect for their predecessors and the designers that created them, these people continue to care only about the latest technical innovation to hit the market, such as the movement-based Wii Remote, or the online capability of Xbox Live. Even the attempts of the console developers to educate the masses of their past has been neglected for newer, better-looking, and “more interesting” material.
I view this as completely unacceptable; the gamer was someone who spent hours of sleepless nights and reveled in caffeine-induced insomnia to experience the designer’s creation, and they respected him or her. Now, the majority no longer cares about what made their newer games exist, much less how enjoyable they still are to this day. It is a complete travesty to the work these men and women have spent their lives learning coding for, and is an insult to the industry in general. History is meant to be learned and respected, not shrugged off like a pile of trash.
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