Video games

A screenshot of *Tetris* for the Nintendo Game Boy

A video game, often written videogame, is a game played using an electronic device with a visual display.

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Overview

(!!revise to match computer games) "Video game" is often taken in a narrow sense to mean those games played on consoles for television and similar handhelds. The term "video game" generally excludes computer games and coin-operated arcade games, not only because the games in these categories are historically different, but because the activity of playing these types of game is different (see history of the video games). The terms electronic game and interactive entertainment include video games, computer games, and coin-operated arcade games.

*Grand Theft Auto 3* is an example of a game that is popular as a video game as well as a computer game.

Today there is a thin line between computer games and video games in terms of genre. Arcade games are still based upon gameplay that can be quickly learned and most involve progression through levels. Many games intended for computers are now just as prevalent on consoles, both of which have many of the same selections of titles. This is due to the fact that video game consoles have drastically increased in computing power and capabilities over the last few years to the point that they can handle games that were formerly only playable with computers. With the release of Microsoft's Xbox console, which was based on PC architecture, and which was developed with online gameplay in mind, most major computer game releases coincide with the release of console versions. However, popular titles initially developed for a single platform are often "ported" to another platform. Recent examples include id's Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Windows to Xbox) and Bungie's blockbuster first person shooter, Halo (Xbox to Windows). The Entertainment Software Association reported that console games outsold computer games in the US by about 380% in 2003.

Video games are made by developers, who can be individuals, but are almost always a team consisting of designers, graphic designers and other artists, programmers, sound designers, musicians, and other technicians. Most video game console development teams number anywhere from 20 to 50 people, with some teams exceeding 100. The average team size as well as the average development time of a game have grown along with the size of the industry and the technology involved in creating games. This has led to regular occurrences of missed deadlines and unfinished products, such as Duke Nukem Forever. See video game industry practices for more information.

From time to time the term interactive is used to describe a video game. This term is often used by people in the movie and television industries who are not comfortable with the idea that they are involved in making video games, due to the video game industry's persistent stereotype of making products targeted solely towards children. A line heard from an executive in such an industry might sound something like, "We're a movie production company, and now we're getting into interactive."

Console Specifics

Games may be released for both the console and the home computer. It should be noted that because of hardware differences, a game played on a computer will have some fundamental differences than the same game as played on a video game console.

One such difference is that on the computer the game player has a wider assortment of direct controls, while video games tend to use more layers of sub-menus, or button combinations. A second such difference is that the keyboard, as compared to the controller, does not lend itself to certain gameplay types that are common on consoles, such as fighting games.

A social distinction between computer and console games arises from the fact that computers tend to have small, high-resolution monitors — optimial for viewing at close range by one person — while consoles use a larger sized (albeit lower-resolution) television as their output device: optimal for viewing at a greater distance by a larger audience. As a result, most computer games are intended for single-player or networked multiplayer play, while many video games are designed for local multiplayer play, with all players viewing the same TV set.

Video games have generally had access to less computing power, less flexible computing power, and lower resolution monitors, than computer games. Before the arrival of 3D graphics cards however, dedicated consoles were more advanced graphically then computer games of the time, especially in animation. This is because video game consoles had dedicated graphics hardware, were able to load things instantly from ROM, and a low resolution output would look better on a television because it naturally blurs the pixels. Since the arrival of dedicated graphics accelerators on PCs, the trend has been reversed with PCs having an edge in the very high end. Modern computer games can handle a wide range of hardware, and since the needed display resoultion is so low on consoles, even their limited capabilites in terms of CPU power and RAM doesn't stop computer games from being ported.

Supporting a wide range of hardware is not all roses though. Computer game developers have, especially in the past, spent significant effort towards supporting additional hardware and testing their implementations only to find players whose systems should be able to run a game yet cannot. Indeed, "minimum requirements" specification on computer games is more complex than that of a console where, for example, a PlayStation 2 game is guaranteed to run on a PS2 (in the same territory).

Japanese computer gaming was overrun in the mid 1980s with the release of the Nintendo Family Computer (Famicon, or Nintendo Entertainment System elsewhere) and Super Mario Bros.. Nearly all the gaming killer apps, such as games in the Dragon Quest series and Final Fantasy series, there have been released for video game consoles. Many Japanese gamers view personal computers as a business tool, that games are meant to be played on dedicated hardware.

Critics of video games

From time to time, video games have been criticized by parents' groups, psychologists, politicians, and some religious organizations for allegedly glorifying violence, cruelty, and crime and exposing children to this violence. It is particularly disturbing to some adults that some video games allow children to act out crimes (for example, the Grand Theft Auto series), and reward them for doing so. Some studies have shown that children who watch violent television shows and play violent video games have a tendency to act more aggressively on the playground, and some people are concerned that this aggression may presage violent behavior when children grow to adulthood. These concerns have led to voluntary rating systems adopted by the industry, such as the ESRB rating system in the United States and the PEGI rating system in Europe, that are aimed at educating parents about the types of games their children are playing (or are begging to play).

Most studies, however, reach the conclusion that violence in video games is not causally linked with aggressive tendencies. This was the conclusion of a 1999 study by the U.S. government, prompting Surgeon General David Satcher to say, “we clearly associate media violence to aggressive behavior. But the impact was very small compared to other things. Some may not be happy with that, but that’s where the science is.” This was also the conclusion of a meta-analysis by psychologist Johnathan Freedman, who reviewed over 200 published studies and found that the majority did not find a causal link.

Critics of movies, television, and books as a group look down on video games as an inferior form of entertainment. This is probably because of the observation that most video games have very little plot and even less character development, which may or may not be true. A frequent counterargument is that this is like complaining that a game of football does not contain much plot or character development, and that although video games include a narrative, they are really about acting in and against a virtual world, which is not primarily based upon passively seeing and hearing. Another point of view compares video games to the movies, which during the silent era were also considered mere entertainment.

See also: video game controversy

Cartridges were common storage devices for console game data, but the current trend is in the use of CDs to store the game and various devices to store saved game states.

External links

Gamasutra - The Art & Science of Making Games

Overview

Console Specifics

Top video games

Critics of video games

See also

External links