Video games as American popular culture

Abstract

Video games have moved, possibly surpassing even movies, into a central role in American popular culture in a relatively short time, and today there is increasing evidence that the video game console –to some extent, as much as the personal computer– has emerged as a central media device through which “convergence culture” is taking place. In the world of massively multiplayer online games, new (and very real) economies and cultures have evolved with striking rapidity, while on a very different scale we see casual games like Angry Birds (2009) and Candy Crush (2012) increasingly becoming integrated into the rhythms of everyday life. Perhaps more than any other aspect of popular culture, video games have blurred the distinction between work and play; the games we play (and work at) tell us about American popular culture and where it is going. Since their appearance as a commercially-available product in 1971, and as a consumer product in 1972, video games have become a major industry in the area of American popular culture. American cultural values have shaped what video games have become, and two of those values, invention and innovation, have expanded the variety of video games so broadly that only a few broad generalizations can now be made regarding the character of American video games. The highly competitive nature of American society has provided fertile ground for competitive gaming, which has become the dominant form of gaming (as opposed to other forms, such as co-operative play, sandbox-style play, puzzle-solving games, and so forth). In the 1970s and 1980s, arcades provided public venues for video game play, and from Star Fire (1980) onward, high-score tables, which allowed players to compare performances, meant that even single-player games had a competitive element to them (players could also compete with their own performances as well). Competition is often involved with the acquisition of goods, property, and position (which, at various levels in American culture, has resulted in consumerism, materialism, and imperialism), and equivalent activities in video games include the collecting of objects or points and the attaining of high scores or higher levels within a game. The fast pace of these games reflects, and contributes to, the pace of American life, which has for the most part accelerated since the 1970s, as technologies like the computer, microwave oven, cell phones, the Internet, and so forth increase the convenience and speed of many of the tasks found in daily life. Other aspects of American culture, such as its relative extroversion, inventiveness, pioneer spirit, and appetite for novelty, are also apparent in many of the games developed in the USA, as well as in the way many American game companies are run, with informal, playful atmospheres that nonetheless have busy schedules and long hours. Besides competition and acquisition, other themes such as cross-cultural conflict, cultural assimilation, and the importance of personal identity (found in such games as the Grand Theft Auto series, the cities of which are very American in their depiction and action), are explored in many games. Some games, like Red Dead Redemption (2010) and BioShock Infinite (2012), even have designs which are highly influenced by American history, even when their settings are entirely fictional. The ways in which video games have affected and been influenced by American popular culture have changed much over the first five decades of their existence, and so a historical approach is useful in exploring the topic, beginning with the cultural context into which video games made their first appearance.