[Clean-up in Progress]

About

Gaming is a subculture centered around the playing or making of games such as sports, tabletop games, and video games. Video games are interactive games played using a user interface to control graphic images in a display screen.^[13]

History

Early video games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. On January 25th, 1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a patent for a "Cathode ray tube Amusement Device," which was later and issued on December 14th, 1948, as U.S. Patent 2455992.^[1]

Most of the early computer games ran on mainframe computers and were developed as a hobby. Video games grew in popularity around the 1970s, with the creation of the arcade cabinets, used to play black-and-white video games such as SpaceWars, Pong^[3] and Space Invaders^[2]. The first console designed to run video games was the Odyssey, developed by television company Magnavox^[5]. The first successful console was the Atari 2600, which had a 4-bit processor and more advanced graphics than the above mentioned Odyssey. It was also the first console to have third party support after Activision filed a lawsuit against Atari Corporations. The popularity of the Atari 2600 lead to many other consoles such as the Colecovision and Intellivision. In 1983, Atari made a contract with Universal Studios, giving them permission to create a video game for the Atari 2600 based on the blockbuster movie "E.T. The Extraterrestrial". The game E.T. is argued to have done so poorly that it played a significant role in causing the gaming crash of 1983 which caused a standstill in gaming industry sales^[6].

Fandom

With the increasing popularity of video games, the term "Gamer" eventually was used to refer to people who commonly play video games. Video games have spread as a subculture over time with the rise of competitive gaming, with tournaments becoming prominent as early as the 1981 with the Space Invaders Championship^[12]. Gaming subcultures have since spread by means of online play and E-sports.

The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation

The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation refers to the recovery of unsold video game cartridges and other overstocked products that were buried en masse at a landfill site in New Mexico by the video game development company Atari in 1983. Following its commencement in April 2014, the excavation project gained much attention after thousands of copies of the ill-fated video game adaptation of the blockbuster film E.T. were recovered from the site.

GamerGate

GamerGate refers to the online backlash against perceived breaches of journalistic integrity on video game news sites that occurred as a result of the Quinnspiracy, an online controversy surrounding indie game developer Zoe Quinn’s alleged affairs with a number of men working in the video game industry, including Kotaku staff writer Nathan Grayson.

/v/

/v/ is an image board on 4chan dedicated to video games. Being one of the first boards created on the site, it has grown to become one of the biggest video game discussion on the internet, while also ironically gaining the reputation to essentially not be about video games. Users of the board are commonly referred to as /v/irgins.

Related Subcultures

Microsoft

Microsoft Studios is the name of Microsoft's sub-company dedicated to producing video games. Microsoft originally tried to break into the gaming market with their MSX, but the console had limited success due to the 1983 Video Game Crash and the rising popularity of the NES^[7]. Microsoft achieved greater success with the PC, and eventually moved on to producing a series of home consoles with a system known as the XBOX. ^[9] Examples are:

• Halo, a first-person shooter video game franchise centered around a galactic war between humans and an alien alliance known as the Covenant.

Nintendo

Nintendo is the oldest company to produce video games, having existed as an entertainment company since the late 1880s (though their first games were not produced until the 1970s). Nintendo is best known for having some of the most recognizable and long-running intellectual properties in the industry, including the following:

• Animal Crossing, a life-simulation game that allows the player to interact with a variety of characters in a world that transpires in real time.

• EarthBound/Mother, a comedic role-playing series taking place in modern society about various groups of friends that fight off alien invasions.

• Fire Emblem, a tactical role-playing game series about conflicts in medieval societies across various worlds.

• Kirby, an action-platformer series where the titular character consumes enemies and gains their powers.

• Metroid, an action series about a bounty hunter named Samus and the various missions she goes on to destroy the space pirates and kill the titular creatures.

• Pokémon, a role-playing game series that allows players to catch and use monsters in order to become the best trainer in the world.

• Star Fox, a series of aerial combat games displaying the expeditions and missions of the titular ship and its crew.

• Super Mario Brothers, a platforming series centered around two Italian plumbers named Mario and Luigi and their journeys to rescue Princess Peach from King Bowser.

• Super Smash Brothers, a crossover fighting series featuring characters across Nintendo's various franchises.

• The Legend Of Zelda, an adventure series revolving around several incarnations of Link, the player character, and his quests to restore tranquility to Hyrule.

Sony

Sony Computer Entertainment entered the business in the mid-1990s. Originally working with Nintendo on a CD add-on for their 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES, the add-on was later scrapped due to licencing issues with Nintendo, along with their already existing CD game contract with rival Philips. This eventually led to Sony using the technology to create their own home console with the Playstation, ^[10] serving as a platform for masterpieces like:

• Final Fantasy VII, a Japanese role-playing game developed by Square Enix. The game takes places in the fictional world of Gaia and centers around Cloud Strife, a mercenary fighting for the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE who are battling against Shinra corporation.

• Metal Gear, an action-adventure stealth video game franchise. The series paved way for stealth-adventure games and explores themes of warfare and philosophy.

Valve

Valve Corporation (formerly Valve Software) is an independent company founded by former Microsoft employee Gabe Newell. Valve became famous for its critically acclaimed Half-Life and Portal sub-series, along with other games such as Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike. Valve is also well known for its software distribution platform Steam, and the Source engine.

• Half-Life, a first-person shooter with alternate history science fiction setting and a linear, and narrative gameplay. Each of these games feature Gordon Freeman as the main protagonist.

• Portal, a first-person puzzle game taking place in the same universe as Half-Life, starring Chell, a female test subject in the laboratories of Aperture Science who uses a portal gun to guide herself through each test.

• Team Fortress 2, a team-based first-person multiplayer shooter featuring a conflict between two teams leading to a variety of gameplay modes and character classes to choose from.

Indie Games

Indie games are games that are made by independent game developers. The artistic freedom this genre has often results in very original games. Famous examples of indie games are:

• Five Nights at Freddy's, a point-and-click survival horror video game in which the player must survive five nights working as a security guard working at the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza restaurant.

• Minecraft, a sandbox mining / building game in which the player gathers various resources and combine them in different ways to create new objects and building structures.

• Shantae, a series of platformer metroidvania video games. In it, you play as Shantae, a half-genie who tries to protect her hometown Scuttle Town and the surrounding Sequin Land from evil.

• Undertale, a role playing video game, featuring gameplay mechanics reminiscent of traditional top-down shooter games but with the ability to win every fight without killing anyone.

Related Memes

Console Wars / Console Debate

Console Wars (also dubbed Console Debates) are a type of flame war between fans of video game consoles. Console debates lead to the coining of the phrase The Glorious PC Gaming Master Race. The Eighth Generation of gaming consoles also lead to the creation of animated GIFs and image macros depicting battles of competitors. These debates are characterized as being lead by fanboys and often parallel PC Wars and Browser Wars debates.

Let's Play

Let’s Play, or LP, is a series in which a person or group plays through a video game and chronicles their progress by posting videos, screenshots with accompanying text, or a mixture of both.

Video Game Logic

Video Game Logic is an expression often used the absurd and illogical plot lines, mechanics, glitches and physics that are found in video games.

Video Game Myths

Video Game Myths are rumors of strange NPCS, or other kinds of entitys, that never been found, nor mentioned, in the game before.

Vidya

Vidya is a shortened form of Vidya Gaem, an intentionally misspelled slang term for video game. The term is commonly used on online image boards and discussion forums in which video games are the topic, most notably 4chan’s /v/ (video games) board.

Search Interest

External References