Abstract Trouble in River City: The Social Life of video games by

The Next Generation, 1995-2003

From 1996 to the present, there have been new game consoles but only minor changes in competitive forces. Sega dropped out of the hardware business and devoted itself to be a software-only company to compete with Electronic Arts. The behemoth Microsoft corporation entered the field with its Xbox system.

Now, nearly two decades after the Atari crash, the industry is a thriving one marked by intense competition, innovation, and a more mainstream product. Video games enjoy a rosy economic outlook, but significant changes from both internal and external sources keep firms in a state of flux. Even as the field continues to rationalize and mainstream, it is threatened by regulation at home and increasing piracy abroad. But above all the issues, the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly networked world looms the largest.

The outlook for games continues to be strong, despite an uncertain economic climate. The demand for entertainment has continued to rise, and forecasts suggest that this will continue. Communications was the second-fastest growing sector (behind construction) of the US economy from 1995 to 2000, growing faster than GDP (Communications Industry Forecast, 2001). Within the larger communications field, conditions remain beneficial to the video game industry. Media, including games, that are supported by consumers rather than advertisers has continued to rise—from 30.7% of all media in 1995 to 40% in 2000. Forecasts predict that “time spent with the Internet and video games will rise faster than all other segments during [2000-2005]” (Communications Industry Forecast, 2001).

As the industry continues to consolidate and integrate, content will become more and more mainstream. Now that games have become established as a stable economic force that reaches an overwhelming number of eyeballs, standard corporate practices from other media industries will begin to occur. For example, the practice of product placement is still rare, but is inevitable. The best selling game of all time, The Sims, will soon feature Sims characters eating McDonald’s hamburgers, slipping on Dole bananas and using Nokia phones (Richtel, 2002). Industry-wide, such placements are predicted to generate $705 million by 2005 (Bannan, 2002). The advent of such strategies will make the industry more and more profitable, but risks the vibrancy of the content. Just as with other media, content is king.

The lessons of the past suggest that the firm that focuses more on profit margins than innovation will founder. The difference today is that one company going under will not harm the industry as a whole; in the current competitive marketplace there are no potential Ataris. Non-interoperability and room for several players have made firms leaner and smarter. The underlying demand is also much stronger than it was when games began. With the majority of the population playing regularly, games have become an everyday part of American media diets. For these reasons, the industry is expected to grow at a robust 10% per year for the next several years (Communications Industry Forecast, 2001).

Some challenges will come from external threats and opportunities. Piracy continues to be a major threat, especially overseas. The U.S. has a software piracy rate of 26%, but this is low compared to the 97% found in Eastern Europe and Latin America and the 99% in China and Vietnam (Industry Profiles, 2000). By 1999, the Interactive Digital Software Association, the industry’s trade and lobbying arm, estimated that annual worldwide piracy-related losses had reached $3.2 billion per year (State of the Industry Report 2000-2001, 2001). At home, policy makers offer a more potent threat. Responding to the media outcry over the violent video games Mortal Kombat in 1992, Doom, as linked to the Littleton massacre perpetrators and Grand Theft Auto III in 2000-2002, legislators have convened a series of hearings about the effects of violent media (see next chapter).

The Rise of Networks

The increased adoption of networked gaming will not come from the hard-core gaming market, which is already saturated. Instead, it is the casual gamer that will expand the potential universe of paying customers (Kushner, 2002a; Wade, 2000). One of the biggest drivers of this mainstreaming effect will be the continued networking of home consoles. Previously, networked play required a PC, and usually one with extra equipment associated with hard-core early adopters. But with the continued penetration of broadband, console systems are joining the network phenomenon. Analysts estimate that by 2007, 24% of Americans will pay to play online PC games. By the same date, 18% of American households will have a networked console (Li, Kolko, Denton, & Yuen, 2003).

The major driver for this phenomenon is not the games themselves, but the addition of other players. Socially oriented game portals have seen exponential growth in the past two years, including spikes among middle-aged and elderly players (Pham, 2001). The presence of competitors and collaborators introduces a social element that has been missing from some gamers’ experiences since the early-1980s heyday of the arcade (J.C. Herz, 1997). Networked social functions have become standard features in most new games, and this trend will only increase. By 2007, the majority of games will be designed with this social component as the key feature of the play experience (Li et al., 2003). Even the arcade sector has reoriented to include network functions. Online tournaments of popular arcade games such as the golf game Golden Tee have become more commonplace (Webb, 2002), drawing in casual bar customers accustomed to nearby dart boards and pool tables ("I'm a Gamer," 2003).

For game makers, the question is whether or not the past will repeat itself. In the first game bust, producers underestimated consumers. Will online game producers make the same mistake? Already, some large firms like America Online have attempted to isolate their customers from outside options with the so-called “walled garden” approach to Internet content. But this approach makes even less sense now than it did in the Atari era. The Internet makes distribution easier and less frictional than traditional retail. Finding alternatives is a Google-search away, rather than a trip to the mall. And while brand power still matters, switching costs are lower in a digital, connected world. Information makes the system more fluid as well; game consumers communicate with one another faster than ever before. The company that produces the next E.T. will fail faster than Atari did.

Beyond the business strategy, the rise of networked gaming has crucial implications for the study of the social impact of video games, and for this dissertation. The little research done to date has generally tested for the effects of games for solo players. As the next chapter will demonstrate, this is not representative of most game play, which has always been fairly social. If the future represents an increase in the social component of game play, as analysts and firms are betting strongly, then the study of gamers must also include this aspect. The study of networked play that makes up the second half of this dissertation was designed with this in mind.

Still, a genuine disconnect remains between the popular conceptions of gaming and actual practices that needs to be explored. Researchers, policy makers and parents have been concerned with the assumedly isolating and violence-inducing nature of video games for the past 20 years. Their concerns must come from somewhere. The next two chapters offer an explanation for these concerns by focusing on the role of the mass media in framing video game technology. These social constructions are then unpacked and contrasted with what science has told us about the actual use and impact of games.

Chapter 3: Explaining the Discourse: Games as a Lightning Rod for Social Issues
With a timeline in place, it is now appropriate to explore the social history of video games. Beyond the details of corporate practices lies a story of vilification and redemption that echoes that of many earlier new media technologies. With the exception of Herz (1997), the handful of game histories (Asakura, 2000; Scott Cohen, 1984; Herman, 1997; Kent, 2000; Sheff, 1999) have all focused on the roles of engineers and captains of industry. As is common with many histories of new technologies, these considered the impact of video games through the lens of technological determinism. However, while most studies of technology ask what the technology does to society (Callon, 1999), this history asks a different series of questions. It begins by acknowledging the role of the consumer as an important piece of the puzzle. Who actually played video games and why?

This basic social history of use serves as a reality check for the confusion, tension and changing perceptions of games that have clouded understanding of their use over the past 20 years. As Bernstein notes: “Not since the advent of TV has an entertainment medium been subjected to such wildly ambivalent reactions” (Bernstein, 2001)(p. 155). The political atmosphere surrounding games became suffused with tensions and struggles unrelated to their use, driven largely by concerns about the rapidly changing American family. How did this happen and why? An examination of the effects research shows that there was scant evidence that games harmed their users or contributed to a breakdown of family life. This stands in stark contrast to the media punditry and reporting, which lambasted game use in lock step with dominant political discourses. A content analysis used in this chapter and the next shows that coverage of games has followed a predictable reactionary pattern. The interplay of politics, media coverage and research agendas shows how video games served as a lightning rod for the social tensions of the day.

The reaction to games is merely one example among a long string of new media technologies. One commonality has been that in each case, the technologies tapped into tensions particular to the era. For the nickelodeon, it was powerful class tensions that erupted into riots in major cities (Gabler, 1999). For the telephone, it was dramatic changes in lifestyle, social activity and gender roles (Fischer, 1992). For both film and television, it was fears about delinquent children and sexuality (Lowery & DeFluer, 1995). For radio, it was a major change in attitudes about race and sexuality and an invasion of privacy in the home (S. Douglas, 1999). Starting with film, each case also led to a major series of social science-based media studies to determine what effect the newfangled technology was having on the unsuspecting populace, most frequently on children (Lowery & DeFluer, 1995). Video games were no different.

Another pattern has been the ambivalence toward technological change reflected by simultaneous utopian and dystopian visions. On the utopian side, new media technologies have been seen as a way to transcend nature, add convenience to daily life, and spread egalitarian, democratic values in a kind of software and hardware socialism—all classes and groups are equally empowered by the new technology (Czitrom, 1982) in a “global village” (McLuhan, 1964). Even cultural critics have seen the utopian potential in what they consider the most ideological and degraded media (Jameson, 1979). On the dystopian side, new media are suspected to be morally corrupting, poisonous to participation in a democratic society, to have created new stresses and inequalities that had not existed before (W. Russell Neuman, 1991), and to disrupt family life. Their users have been systematically portrayed as hapless and in dire need of protection.

Ruth Schwartz Cowan suggests that any decent social history of a technology should focus on the consumer, and at a place she calls the “consumption junction.” In this place, consumers decide whether to adopt the technology or not, and in what form (Cowan, 1999). In making their decisions, these consumers are not operating in a social vacuum. Instead, their choices are guided by large social forces and by the various roles they play in life. To understand the context of these choices, we have to understand the consumer’s place in a network of relationships that begin with the individual and expand out into the larger society through the family. According to Cowan, the first step in the process is “to evaluate the ways in which the special social and physical relations of the household might influence consumption choices” (p. 274). Obviously, different consumers will exist in different networks and be guided in their decisions by different forces. But by focusing on the household and the family as Cowan suggests, we can gain insight into the roles consumers play as part of a family unit and how the use of game technology highlights issues of power, place and agency for each family member. The next chapter takes this approach a step further by exploring three key facets of game use that are affected by power relations and social control: age, gender and place.

Cowan’s focus on active consumers stands in stark contrast to elite views. A central theme of this dissertation has been that elite discourses—political, business, and some academic—tend to pooh-pooh the notion of an active and intelligent consumer-citizen. Unsurprisingly then, the actual uses and effects of the technology were drastically at odds with public perceptions and research agendas. To show this, it is essential to start by explaining just who played games, when and why. This basic history of use can then serve as a baseline for the more complex social issues that follow. For now, the process begins with a basic descriptive understanding of why people play.

As Stevenson has noted, academia starts typically with what new media do wrong. Although there are exceptions (e.g., a more balanced utopian and dystopian approach to the Internet), this was true of most game research. In early studies of game players, this took the form of looking for pathological profiles. But as Funk has noted (1992), studies into the psychoses of gamers have never yielded any fruit, and no profile of the pathological or “addicted gamer” has emerged. For the simpler issue of motivation, the research has yielded results, at least for adolescent players.

Those adolescents who have played games have done so for a consistent set of reasons over time, and nearly 20 years of studies have replicated the findings. Game players—both in homes and in arcades—have been found to be bright, outgoing, competitive, and technoliterate (McClure & Mears, 1984). Studies of player motivations have found consistently that game play takes place for three reasons: for challenge, control, and for social interactions. A 1985 study of college students found that both men and women were driven by competition in their game play, although men found mastering the game to be more important than women did (Morlock, Yando, & Nigolean, 1985). A 1986 study found a similar desire for mastery among college males, and evidence of games being used for mood management (Mehrabian & Wixen, 1986). A 1990 study of college students found that challenge was the top reason for play, followed by social activity (Myers, 1990). Both a 1993 (Gailey) and 1997 (M. Griffiths) study of children found that children played for control and challenge, and because it was a way to be with their friends. Lastly, a large 2003 university sample survey found that challenge, passing time and social interactions were still the dominant reasons for game play (J. Sherry, 2003).

Class differences have appeared in the research, although the reasons are not clear. After wide class mixing in early arcades, general game use has become a more lower-class phenomenon (D. Lieberman, 1986). 1992 public high school data showed that 16.9% of low socioeconomic status students played an hour a day or more, as compared to only 13.7% of middle SES students and 9.4% of high SES students (High School and Beyond, 1994). In this survey, the game play may have come at the expense of TV viewing. Comparing earlier data from the same institution shows a dramatic decline in TV consumption between 1982 and 1992, precisely when game play increased (National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, 1988).

Without question, public opinion and media coverage of video games was driven by sociopolitical tensions and by technological and demographic changes. During the initial games boom, the 1981 Reagan revolution marked a key historical moment when conservative forces swept to power in American politics. In a shift away from the progressive politics and gains in the women’s movement in the 1970s (Wandersee, 1988), conservatives questioned the morality of nontraditional family types, and called for a return to earlier times. News media served as a conduit for anti-feminist, and often anti-mother rhetoric in the 1980s (Faludi, 1991), and despite real gender progress in news rooms, journalism continued to be a profession dominated by men (Byerly, 1999). Technologically, Americans were adopting a series of new devices into their daily lives— cable television, VCRs, and the home computer. These devices were on the one hand time-saving and empowering, but on the other hand were also seen as hugely disruptive of family life.

Underscoring all of these trends were dramatic changes in families and in the role of women. In the United States, a large portion of work shifted from home to workplace settings, explained almost entirely by the migration of women into the work force. Even as economic and social conditions had begun to change what “family” meant, the very notion of family continued to be an epicenter for political and cultural struggle. During the first game boom of 1977-1983, divorce, remarriage, and new nontraditional forms of family were challenging the traditional nuclear forms promoted in official discourses and in media representations (Chambers, 2001). As a direct result, fears and anxieties about parentless children, irresponsible single mothers and a general decline in moral and family values permeated sociocultural debate.

Statistics and social commentary from the time reveals a tremendous level of anxiety about women and families. Popular magazines from the mid 1970s through the mid 1990s decried the imminent collapse of the nuclear household. Headlines read: “The American Family. Can it Survive Today’s Shocks?” (U.S. News & World Report, 1975) “Saving the Family” (Newsweek, 1978), “Family’s Chances of Survival” (U.S. News & World Report, 1979), “Death of the Family?” (Newsweek, 1983), “The Clamor to Save the Family” (Newsweek, 1988), “The Nuclear Family Goes Boom!” (Time, 1992). These concerns were imbued with a host of other power issues, but did contain some substance. The divorce rate had risen steadily (see Table 2), and more and more households began to assume nontraditional forms. Most notably, divorced and unmarried women became heads of households, often caring for children. In 1970, unmarried women with children headed 2.9 million households. By 1980, this number had risen to 5.4 million, and by 1985, 6 million.¹⁰

Nevertheless, the cultural groundwork for fears about childhood truancy and parental irresponsibility and guilt was well-established long before video games appeared on the national scene. In 1975, U.S. News & World Report decried, “As households change or break up, children are increasingly under the care of a single parent, a working mother, a day nursery—or the television set” ("The American Family: Can it Survive Today's Shocks?," 1975). Such conditions, the article contended, increased the risk of runaways and suicide. Latchkey children were depicted as the ultimate symbol of shame for parents who had put their own interests ahead of their offspring’s. A 1977 Time illustration featured an abandoned baby trying to plug in a television set to keep itself entertained ("All Our Children," 1977). By the time home video games began to appear in American homes in force between 1978 and 1982, they were moral scapegoats before coming out of their packaging.

An interesting side note to these tensions over the family can be seen in the industry’s attempts to manage them. Before politicians began blasting games, manufacturers attempted to portray them as a positive social force. As Marchand has demonstrated, advertising can be a means of idealizing and normalizing new products, and often operates with powerful social messages (Marchand, 1985). For games, this meant convincing parents that games could unite their families, while also convincing single adults that games had sex appeal. Ultimately, in the face of media frames and conservative punditry, both attempts failed miserably. From the 1972 launch of the Magnavox Odyssey through the early 1980s Atari age, marketing materials for home games featured tableaux of a smiling nuclear family bonding around a game machine (see Figure A).