Gaming

I'm such a gaming junkie.
Let's face it, coming of age during the rise of the Atari 2600 makes the probability of becomming a game addict a whole lot more certain to happen, doesn't it?
I remember playing Missle Command on my Atari 2600 one time on a Sunday, when I was in like 5th grade I think. I was determined to roll the score over to zero. I think I played that damn game for like seven hours straight. As I recall, you couldn't pause it, either, but, I may be mistaken about that. Either way, my eyes were pretty buggy by the end of that session. What's funny is now I can sit glued to World of Warcraft for like 20 hours no problem if the girlfriend isn't around to tell me to turn it off.
I also remember playing Ultima IV on the Commodore 64. Yeah, we were lame, we didn't have an Apple II. But, the C64 was pretty slick for the Ultima games. I had been working on getting that stupid game completed, and had taken a lot of crappy notes, and had this great printout that I got from a friend, that had all manner of information, especially for the end of the game, where you had to answer all these questions about humility and honor and valor and such. Anyway. I sat there for like 7 or 8 hours straight to finish the damn thing, and made it. It was pretty cool. Really really boring graphics by today's standards to be sure, but, fantastic gameplay.
Now, yeah, I was playing D&D back in the day (nerd factor: Very High), and playing computer games. It is funny to think back to a time when gaming was a little bit underground in a very nerdy sort of way. Like if you admitted that you played computer games, you were pretty much automatically a nerd. I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. Sit tight.
Something very strange happened somewhere around 1996 or so, I think it was very subtle and nobody much noticed for the most part: Gaming became cool, or at least cooler. Graphics for games also got a lot better. I've since been pretty sure of a couple of basic notions about gaming.
First of all, I think that better graphics presents greater accessibility through a more visually compelling game play experience. I also think that this means that games which require some imagination and, yes, intelligence aren't the norm then. Let's for the sake of argument equate nerdiness with intelligence for a moment. What we get then is more people (think about larger population sample) playing games. Which leads to my next point.
Secondly, games got dumbed down. Broader audience means broader appeal. The IQ 135+ market is really a niche market, let's face it. Where there used to be lots of games like Bards Tale, Ultima, Wizardry... well, let's face it... RPGs, there came a big influx of fighting and action games. More people playing games means gaming being more broadly accepted, but I think it actually creates an effect of games slightly driving away the people who were into them early.
I don't mean this in an elitist, "I was here first" sort of way. I'm saying, look at the explosion of both production and consumption of games. The vast majority of stuff out there is crap.
I need to back up for a second now. I want to make sure I keep the distinction between arcade games and computer games clear. But, in a way, the explosion brought the arcade home. It made gaming less uncool, because more people were doing it.
Look, I have a theory about the evolution of a 'cool' trend. I'm trying to figure out a mathematical representation for the idea. I guess I'm saying is there is a glut of games, there are a lot gamers now. And it is big business.
Now I'm just mad. I didn't mind being a nerd. Let's bring back more game play to complimentary to those great graphics. And let's enlighten the newer crop of gamers with better games. Maybe I need to go something productive now.