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[Drinky Crow]

Can I be?

 

[xsarien]

Can I be?

You're going to need to, um...take a bit of a cut if you know what I'm sayin'...

 

[Juice]

Can I be?

I just noticed your avatar's Christmas decoration is all...

 

[AstroLad]

Until as many people play games as watch movies, the medium WILL NEVER BE mainstream.

It'sa niche medium. The niche has just shifted demographics a bit. And now it's purportedly leveling off in America, growing in Europe, and shrinking in Japan.

There's very little you can point to about the gaming industry to call it "mainstream" in any traditional sense of the world. Interactive entertainment is anything but a pervasive medium.

So your standard is that something has to be as popular as movies to be mainstream? Why is the bar set there? There are tons of things not 1/10th as popular as movies that literally every person would call mainstream. As for "There's very little you can point to about the gaming industry to call it "mainstream" in any traditional sense of the world," well:

1. U.S. computer and video game software sales grew four percent in 2004 to $7.3 billion -- a more than doubling of industry software sales since 1996.

2. Seventy-five percent of American heads of households play computer and video games.

3. In 2004, more than 248 million computer and video games were sold, almost two games for every household in America.

4. The average game player is 30 years old and has been playing games for 9.5 years.

5. The average game buyer is 37 years old. In 2005, 95 percent of computer game buyers and 84 percent of console game buyers were over the age of 18.

6. Eighty-three percent of all games sold in 2004 were rated "E" for Everyone or "T" for Teen.

7. Eighty-seven percent of game players under the age of 18 report that they get their parents’ permission when renting or buying games, and 92 percent say their parents are present when they buy games.

8. Forty-three percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (28 percent) than boys from ages 6 to 17 (21 percent).

9. In 2004, 19 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.

10. Forty-two percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. In addition, 34 percent of heads of households play games on a wireless device, such as a cell phone or PDA, up from 20 percent in 2002.

If that data is even half right (and all industry data is somewhat skewed, including that which Hollywood spews out), that's pretty "traditionally mainstream."

games will never be mainstream as long as we have grown adults browning their Dockers with glee over nintendo mascots

What you say?

 

[Shinobi]

Playing games has definitly gone mainstream, but there are a variety of games and game types, that, just like movies, range from mainstream to niche. For instance, Madden Football is clearly mainstream, with tons of people playing it who never play another game all year. On the opposite end is something like Katamari Damacy which is a blast to play, but is completely off the radar for most gamers.

That's true for anything in entertainment...you've got the big name blockbuster hits, and the alleged real gems that pull in just 20,000 on the Billboards or 20 million at the box office.

Well alot of people need gaming to be a niche industry to support their argument that gaming as a whole could collapse at any moment unless a certain company comes out and saves us all.

And because if gaming were mainstream and an accepted form of entertainment that millions enjoy immensely, that would mean that developers are still creating great games along with the crap ones just like always, which as we have learned from this board is incorrect. Because if this board has taught us anything it's that the last great game was created in '91.

Is what we need is for some company to come out with a system that will take gaming to the masses and get all the women and senior citizens playing. But who could do such a thing?

:lol I like your style...not to mention your viewpoint.

The problem with debates like these is that the term mainstream has no specific definition. There are probably 30 good reasons that support the notion that gaming is and isn't mainstream, and no one could say shit about them. Then again, I guess that's why it's a debate to begin with.

Personally I feel gaming in North America has been mainstream since the release of the NES (that believe it or not had tons of crap, sequels and licensed titles released on it too!! Shocker!!), which brought to the table cartoons, breakfast cereals and two movies (three if you count Double Dragon).

Is gaming as socially accepted as movies and music? Nope...but it's a hell of a lot more accepted now then it was even a decade ago, and movies and music are working with an 80 year head start. More and more celebrities be they athletes, musicians or actors talk about the games they like to play now, or the games they grew up playing. And let's face it, Best Buy don't opening their doors at midnight for new DVD or High Def TV releases. Hell, it rarely happens with DVD and music releases. But mainstream chains were open at midnight to sell Halo 2. Don't think that isn't significant.

Of course if "socially accepted" is part of the definition of mainstream for some people, then the case for gaming not being mainstream has merit. And there isn't shit I can say about it.

The funny thing is that I bet you could apply many of the same arguments to the internet in regards to that being mainstream or not. Yet I get the feeling few people would say it's anything but mainstream.