Can gaming be considered a mainstream pastime?

[MUTANT SPUD]

http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/2182/Team-Talk-The-Bigs/p1

I don't know about this, Gaming is not as readily accessible to the whole consumer population as traditional media are. At a typical mainstream movie session you see the full spectrum of society, a sixty year old person would enjoy Oceans 13 just as much as a twenty year old. Furthermore, how could a movie tied in to a game suck any less than most games tied into movies? The same amount of money would need to be invested and the same pressure from publishers and studio executives would apply.
You could possibly put them all on simultaneous release, sell a 3 disc Game, Soundtrack Album and DVD package at the cinemas, if cleverly written and constructed the three products could compliment each other.
One could imagine a Singstar or DDR type product for musicals and action/adventure titles being designed to fill in the blanks in movie plots such as prequel material or alternate endings, sort of like a directors cut.
There are many possibilities here, especially as animation and game technologies continue to advance, even to the point of having user created series where groups of players or professional actors take control of digital actors in an MMO type environment, sort of a realtime machinima on pay per view. I know Second Life has this but Second Life Blows (insert reference to furry sex here) I'm talking about properly scripted and acted theatre, for want of a better word pitched at a prime time audience, we've all seen with The Simpsons that viewers readily identify with animated characters.I'm interested to hear what other posters think.

[nightwng2000]

As a true mainstream media, yes, I think it truly has reached that level.

(1) Availability. Video games, even if you don't count computer games, are available in every retail sector. Sales, rental, subscription, and others. In the first ten years of mass production, you couldn't say that about video games. Sales, for a high price, certainly. But rentals or subscriptions? No.

(2) Shared medium. Going to the movies is clearly a very social event. Watching TV can even be a social event, though the ones you share that time with are all people you may know. It's the same with the written medium. Book clubs, debate clubs, and so on allow sharing of written mediums. And sharing in music is obvious just by going to bars, clubs, or parties.

But in the first few years of video games, again leaving out computers, there was a limitation on sharing the medium. Two, sometimes as much as four, players could play at once. That's it. Oh, computers with modems allowed some additional sharing capabilities, but it wasn't as wide spread.

Now we have massive multiplayer games on just gaming consoles.16 or more players playing all at once... and not all in the same house. There may even be events where more people are sharing the same event than people in a movie theater.

(3) Recycled. After the first few years of video game existance, the ability to purchase early games was limited. A good yard sale or selling in the newspaper was your best chance.

Now, we have emulators (legal or not) even available for consoles. We have stores that sell some old (though fairly recent in the overall scheme of things) games. Ebay is another source. Even some new retro games are made of very old systems.

(4) Rated? One might argue that because video games have become so mainstream, the need to rate them, like the MPAA does with movies or like the TV rating system, has become necessary. Of course, written material isn't rated. But that's another story I guess.

(5) Awards. One can't argue that games have become so commonplace that the need to award for outstanding material has already begun. Maybe not a major sign of mainstreamed media, but it does hold it in common with other media.

There are probably others, but these are certainly signs that video games hold a great deal in common with current mainstream media.

[MUTANT SPUD]

I hadn't thought of it that way, when the Oscars has a category for best video game, or best performance in a video game and categories for technical achievement, then gaming really will be mainstream. Also the way games are promoted across the media needs to be tackled in a mainstream way, having "making of" specials and high rotation commercials in prime time like they do for movies. The article was right about gaming needing "Stars", real ones not just Master Chief or Lara Croft to carry the medium into the living room.

[Hannah]

I hadn't thought of it that way, when the Oscars has a category for best video game, or best performance in a video game and categories for technical achievement, then gaming really will be mainstream. Also the way games are promoted across the media needs to be tackled in a mainstream way, having "making of" specials and high rotation commercials in prime time like they do for movies. The article was right about gaming needing "Stars", real ones not just Master Chief or Lara Croft to carry the medium into the living room.

I'm not sure if that kind of mainstream is really a good thing, though. It would generate more money, sure, but I can't be the only one around here who simply cannot understand the appeal of the Oscars and other award ceremonies.

But yeah... in game development, the people behind the scenes do tend to stay behind the scenes, often for a good reason. Nobody in the general public cares what some random neckbearded programmer's name is -- they're only looking for pretty and/or rich people like actors and directors.

[mopman411]

I'm sure that only a few hardcore gammers would be watching something like that. I have a feeling that if they did that though, it would kill their tv rattings.

[nightwng2000]

I hadn't thought of it that way, when the Oscars has a category for best video game, or best performance in a video game and categories for technical achievement, then gaming really will be mainstream. Also the way games are promoted across the media needs to be tackled in a mainstream way, having "making of" specials and high rotation commercials in prime time like they do for movies. The article was right about gaming needing "Stars", real ones not just Master Chief or Lara Croft to carry the medium into the living room.

The Oscars doesn't need to recognize video games. Each medium has their own specific awards ceremonies.

There are some ceremonies which already exist. But they aren't as big as the Oscars or Emmys. But then, neither are any award ceremoneis for the written medium either.

When it comes to video games, you might have the equivilant of directors, writers, designers, and other behind the scene people, but "Star Power" doesn't really exist.

Many Stars today either limit themselves to movies or TV, but some actually work in both areas. And the music industry has a great many Stars as well.

But the written medium doesn't have the same type of Star Power. And because most video games rely on computer or graphic animation of some sort, many Stars don't necessarily stand out because most of the actual Stars acting in the medium are solely voice actors.

And most major ceremonies require an actual recognized acting personality to be successful. I don't think the Oscars or Emmys would be as successful if they were limited to awarding the behind the scenes folk and no actual big recognized Stars.

While it's good to recognize the hard work of those behind the scenes folk, I don't think the awards ceremonies would be as interesting to the General Public withou more well known faces and names.

[beemoh]

Not taking too much away from the hellishly-talented voice actor, but the gaming industry needs a project built specifically for a leading Hollywood man in order for it to reach its boiling point; not simply feature the voice of a personality little known outside of the sci-fi sector. And we’re not talking about movie games that feature Matt Damon playing his flick likeness. We need Damon in an original IP…originating as a video game…spun off into a movie. How do you like them apples, Hollywood?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheelman

Um, yes.

Applying star power properly to games is perhaps a catch-22, in that nobody cares about them enough to put them on TV, and because they're not on TV, nobody knows who they are enough to care about them.

I think the problem really lies in that we don't appear to care.

Think about every time there's been an attempt at a games show on TV, it bombs.

Now, it's not because games don't work on the TV, but it's because, pure and simple, the show isn't providing what the websites, the forums and the magazines are, with the excuse that they're chasing the mainstream.

The problem is that the mainstream don't watch, simply because they're not interested in games, and we don't watch, because the websites, the forums and the magazines- which are now full of dissatisfied articles/posts/letters about how crap the programme is- are doing the job better.

This makes us look like we're not interested in the people behind the games, which is obviously not true, as the W,F&M are full of interviews with the Miyamotos and the Levines and who-have-you, the producers and the directors, (rather than the "random neckbearded programmers", although I would argue that nobody really cares about random neckbearded cameramen, either) and as such the mainstream don't know who they're meant to be caring about in terms of gaming, thus they don't appear in weak, mainstream-chasing games TV shows which bomb because blah blah round and round.

It would help if G4 hadn't given up and become a weak, repeat-focused general entertainment channel (as I understand it, anyway. I don't live in the US, so I can't watch it) as this is where it has to start- we can't just jump immediately into prime-time Fox, after all.

This is a bit of a simplification, there's perhaps more to it than just television coverage- hell, there's more in the issue of TV coverage than I've covered here- but it's a decent start.

[beemoh]

Also, all this talk of "star power" and nobody made a Guitar Hero joke? I'm disappointed in the lot of you.

(and before anyone complains about that being geeky, another problem is that we need to stop caring what people think about gamers/gaming and just get out there and do it- if it's something we feel we have to be ashamed about, it becomes something we have to be ashamed about and we're back to square one)

[MUTANT SPUD]

So what I'm hearing is that gaming is a mainstream activity which is experienced in non traditional ways..interesting..I suppose any stigma can be associated with the way people use the technologies, most people use the internet but still regard heavy users as nerds, ditto gaming, a person who plays Madden for two hours on a sunday morning contrasted with someone who plays WOW for two hours every night.There's still that perception of games being a waste of time compared to other media, I don't think that's going away soon.

[Hannah]

So what I'm hearing is that gaming is a mainstream activity which is experienced in non traditional ways..interesting..I suppose any stigma can be associated with the way people use the technologies, most people use the internet but still regard heavy users as nerds, ditto gaming, a person who plays Madden for two hours on a sunday morning contrasted with someone who plays WOW for two hours every night.There's still that perception of games being a waste of time compared to other media, I don't think that's going away soon.

Well, games are a waste of time... but they're certainly no worse in that regard than any other form of entertainment. Even when I read for pleasure... I may soak up huge amounts of information, but I don't actually accomplish anything. That's the point, actually. It wouldn't really be entertainment if it wasn't a waste of time, or at the very least it would look a lot more like work :)

[Thefremen]

I don't know that it's TRUELY mainstream like Radio in the 40s, say, but it is mainstream like Radio in the mid to late 20s. There's a few established genres, but it doesn't really serve everyone and the dramas tend to be pretty specific as to who they serve and what they're about. Westerns, Crime, Superhero, Variety, Humor, etc.

There are some famous names but mostly people know their favorite characters, people in Washington don't know what to make of it and although some major corporations are advertising it isn't entirely seen as a wise investment of Ad dollars.

Also, Miami Attourneys constantly attack The Green Hornet.

[Crowskie]

I am so sick of people comparing games to other forms of media. Games are not movie, games are not books, games are not music, they are games. The fact that everyone with a computer plays minesweeper means games are mainstream. The real question then becomes "Are 'Hardcore' games mainstream", and the answer to that question is yes. Games are penetrating every aspect of even non-gamers lives with products like Game Fuel, the Spy Hunter Pontiac commercial, and similar.

The only issue is the technology gap that is disappearing rapidly as senior citizens buy up Wiis and soccer moms buy up DSes and the lowest of income families can afford a PC. Flash is installed on 99% of computers, and anyone with flash can play some of the best games out there for free. A lot do. More that most people realize.