Gamepaddle Video Games. Education. Empowerment. Michaela Anderle & Sebastian Ring (Ed.)

Introduction

In a society that underwent large, deep and, in many ways, sudden changes – even to suggest the idea of ​​a liquid modernity (fortunate metaphor with which Zygmunt Bauman (2000) has attempted to describe both the uncertainty and the frenzy of the so-called post-modernity as transience and relativisation of boundaries typical of globalisation) –, the area of digital technology has perhaps seen a powerful acceleration more than any other, becoming a driving force for the growth of other fields. But the effects of such transformations have not remained limited to individual specialized areas in which they had their first uses, in fact, they have also brought about profound changes in other fields. Digital media is changing more ordinary practices of life, becoming part of everyday life not only of the so-called White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP), but of the whole world. Indeed, although there are limits (which are those implied in the famous issue of the digital divide), nowadays digital media is used from one end to the other on Earth regardless of ethnicity, gender and age.

If the progress of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has been quick, certainly, the evolution of games created to be played on digital platforms should not be underestimated. In this regard, it seems appropriate to give a brief overview of the changes that led video games into domestic environments, in schools and even in the streets.

Video Games: An Historical Overview

In short, those mentioned above could not yet be called video games as we know them today, they were more like science experiments. The first video game worthy of being considered as such was Spacewar!, invented between 1961 and 1962 by Steve “Slug” Russell (who taught at MIT). In fact, unlike the others, it showed – completely in real time – a world with physical rules and situations able to evolve.

From the Seventies onwards, video games reached the general public; in fact, at first the hardware had an enormous size and was prohibitively expensive (tens of thousands of dollars per computer). It was Galaxy-Game – a reprogrammed version of the classic Spacewar! – the first game to be conceived as an arcade machine with tokens (coin-op), but Nolan Bushnell’s Atari (who wished to supersede the pinball) was the first company able to spread video games quite quickly: in 1973 it sold about 2,000 units of the coin-op named Pong.

Whilst the company responsible for the distribution of home consoles for video games is Sanders and Associates. It invested in an idea of Ralph Baer (1966), a television engineer, and it also knew how to market it, together with Magnavox, – during Christmas of 1972 – by placing it on the market of the Magnavox Odyssey: sold 165,000 units of the game of ping-pong during the first year! In 1976, it was Atari, however, to also make its way in the market for home consoles superseding the brainwave of Sanders and remaining in the collective memory as the true deliverer (in electronics) of boxed fun in the world (Matarazzo, 2007: 166).

Video games had their own golden age from 1978 with Space Invaders by Taito; amusement arcades multiplied and coloured arcade games were introduced (for example Pac-Man); they hit a peak in the Eighties, when they began to be defined by genre: action-adventure game, action role-playing games, adventure games, beat ‘em up, cinematic platformer, computer role-playing video games, console role-playing video games, fighting games, hack and slash, interactive movies, platform games, scrolling platformers, scrolling shooters, isometric platformer, isometric shooter, light gun shooter, maze games, platform-adventure games, racing games, rail shooter, real-time strategy, run & gun shooters, rhythm game, stealth games, survival horror, vehicle simulation games, visual novels.

The Nineties brought about relevant innovations, among them the gradual transition from 8 to 64 bits, which resulted in a substantial improvement in the sound and graphic quality. In addition to the consoles Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), came Game Boy and Game Gear that’s the first mass handheld consoles (thanks to LCD screens). With more powerful and less costly processors, video games in need of higher performance found adequate support. In fact, not only 3D graphics replaced the raster graphics, but with the arrival of the Sony PlayStation it was passed to use the CD-ROM drive, which can store much more information than the previous technology. The market success of the new console was so massive that PlayStation Generation spoke about a mass phenomenon. Over 104.25 million⁷ units were shipped. Massively Multiplayer Online Game (also called MMO and MMOG, some of which are role-playing games: MMORPG) then revolutionised the way we are thinking about games. They provided a platform for concurrent gaming via the Internet for a potentially unlimited number of players that can interact with each other (for example: Air Warrior, Neverwinter Nights, Ultima Online, and so on) (Thomas, Orland, & Steinberg, 2007: 79-82).

With the 21st century came the best-selling console of all time, the PlayStation 2 with its 153.68 millions⁸ of machines sold (datum that goes back to May 2012). A new device that really changed gaming habits – and therefore the practices linked to them – was an invention by Nintendo, the Wii. Thanks to the primary wireless controller, the Wii Remote, accelerometers and an infrared LED transmission system, this machine can transpose the player’s movements directly into virtual reality shown in real time on a TV screen. In 2010, the same company put the Nintendo 3DS on the market which is the first handheld video game console that produces game 3D images without the need for special glasses⁹.

In our opinion, what makes such a great technological evolution interesting, are in particular the ways in which it spreads. Extension and mix led Henry Jenkins (2006a) to discuss even convergence culture: the media contents pass from one medium to another and new as well as unexpected combinations sometimes lead to further changes. Video games evolve in this way, they even find new uses in the most modern ICTs. Moreover, just think of the applications designed for the most popular social network sites (SNSs) of the moment.

However, if on the one hand technological innovation gives the input so that a change can take shape, on the other hand what never ceases to amaze is the fact that the inventors, humans, evolve and make evolve not only their way of life but also the inventions themselves through constant transformative acts: man invents and reinvents himself.