Video Games Rock

Just about any teen or pre-teen in the U.S. or anywhere else knows that. What they may not know is that video games have become one of the most insidious and powerful forms of television in the world, and not just among the younger set.

The Evolution of TV

Television has evolved tremendously in recent decades. Changes in ownership, regulation and technology have all helped transform television to such a degree that in many ways the medium barely resembles the lights and wires in a box alluded to so famously by Edward R. Murrow in his speech at the Radio Television News Directors Association convention in Chicago, Illinois. Just what constitutes television in the 21st century is far more than simply subject matter for academic musings. Instead, it is vital to the future of the entire television enterprise.

As the digital age has taken hold, video games have emerged as one of the most important components of the empire of television entertainment. Practically overnight, and to a certain extent quietly, the question of whether interactive television would ever take hold has been answered. Interactive television trials such as QUBE in Columbus, Ohio in the 1970s and Time Warner’s Full Service Network in Orlando, Florida in the 1990s seemed to suggest that interactivity might perhaps never find a secure foothold in a medium dominated by passive audience viewing.

Who Plays

As digital technologies transformed television and all other media at the dawn of the twenty first century, interactive television in the form of video games exploded on the scene. In early 2008, an estimated 150 million Americans routinely play video games, often on their television set, which is increasingly a large flat panel screen with surround sound. Studies show that video games were once the almost exclusive domain of the young, mostly eighteen and younger. The Entertainment Software Association reports that as of 2007 nearly a 24 percent of Americans fifty years or older play video games, an increase from less than one in ten percent in 2000. The average age of a video gamer in the United States is thirty three. Even the very young play video games, with many video games targeting children as young as three or four years of age. Most gamers are male, but the portion of female gamers is growing. Less than a decade ago just twenty nine percent of gamers were female; today it is forty percent. More than a third of U.S. parents play video games with their children.

Murrow in his speech at the Radio Television News Directors Association convention in Chicago, Illinois. Just what constitutes television in the 21st century is far more than simply subject matter for academic musings. Instead, it is vital to the future of the entire television enterprise. As digital technologies transformed television and all other media at the dawn of the twenty first century, interactive television in the form of video games exploded on the scene.

The videogame industry has swelled to nearly $25 billion in annual sales and $42 billion worldwide, generating more revenues each year than Hollywood!

By: Bob Jackson