The Purpose of this Blog

A lot of people play video games. Hell, you found your way to this blog somehow, so chances are you do. Gaming is a huge billion dollar industry, growing ever larger and consuming more players than ever before.

Yet it seems that gaming has yet to break it into the mainstream. While gaming has been catching up to other entertainment sources such as the music or movie industry, we haven't seen mainstream penetration (next time this word is used, there will be a dick joke involved. You have been warned). While many talk shows and news stations will blather endlessly about Britney Spears losing custody of her children, we never hear about Tomonobu Itagaki playing grab-ass with a former coworker. There are many explanations for this. Perhaps the industry hasn't matured enough to capture the attention of the world. This may be the case, but gaming, in its modern form, has been around for almost 30 years. Movies and TV became mainstream well within this time. I have my own theory. I blame the nerds.

Back when computers were just coming out, only the absolutely nerdiest of the nerds would tinker with them at all. While playing with these machines, they would create games to play with. Over the course of the years, these games would expand more and more, capturing the attention of many more nerds. Today, we have reached a point where gaming has become a huge industry, where almost every person in America has at least played a game. Yet, gaming is still disregarded as a habit for children, nerds, or other social misfits. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Have you played Tetris? Most of you said "yes," I'm sure. Tetris is one of the biggest video games ever. It has appeared in more gaming platforms than any other game in the world.

Do you know who created Tetris? Most of you said "no." The few who did know are the previously mentioned nerds I've been talking about. Does this kind of thing happen in any other medium? If you watched the movie "Schindler's List," I'm positive most of you would have known that Steven Spielburg directed it (in case you still are wondering, Alexi Pajitnov created Tetris).

I am one of those nerds who knows too much about video games. With all these thoughts and opinions floating in my head about the subject, I find it aggravating that there aren't enough people in the world to share them with. So I decided to write a blog.

In this blog, I will talk about some of the history of gaming, my opinions of its current state, and where its future possibly lies. This introduction might have led you to believe that this blog will be an objective repository for gaming information, which is incorrect. It's here simply for me to unload my opinions and thoughts on the subject. But I hope that in writing it, I will attract readers who don't know much about gaming, and might learn how the industry and culture works. We can all probably benefit from more mainstream gamers in this world.