Gaming Culture

Ever since I was young it seems games have been quite a big part of mine and most young childrens lives, and you might not have even realised. I'm sure those reading this will recognise these two guys...I certainly do as I grew up playing their games! But I think these type of game represent the modern gaming culture, when in reality games fit in with out long term historical cultures.
In our lecture we looked way back in time and realised that games are in fact as long as history.
Sport for example has been around as long as time, and sports in reality are a game. These types of games are structured by excercise, but have outcomes, rules and winners. When I think about it alot of what we do is structured around games, whether it be playing a drinking game, playing a game on your phone, playing a sport, playing chess they all involve 'playing' and have been around as long as we have. In terms of games, digital culture and the media, we can look at how the media has played its part in progressing gaming cultures.

This diagram shows how modern gaming culture has progressed, since 'The Magnavox Odyssey' was first released in 1972 to today with the X-Box. In 1983 gaming had a 'big crash,' as the diagram shows there was too many consoles out along with over production they simply wern't selling. It seemed consumers were bored of "last generation" consoles. Then in the late 80's it was our man mario who brought the gaming industry back to life. Until finally we reach the 2000's where gaming sat in the centre of digital culture.
It's wierd to think that I play games at least once a day and that they impact my life more than I could imagine. Video games in my opinion have helped to shape and change our society as games affect all parts of peoples lives. For example, I'm aspiring to be a Journalist and my lecturer and the lecture itself made me realise that some people see Journalism as a game, 

“A new generation of news junkies has stopped reading the news and started playing it.”  Fred Turner quoted on the Amazon.com website. This quote implies that journalists have stopped taking the news as it is and can twist it into whatever they want you to read. Looking into this just makes me take the gaming culture a little more serious, maybe it isn't all about making Mario jump over obsticles, in fact it can be much deeper than that. Gaming Culture shapes us and our community and it is crucial to recognise just how important IT IS to us.