Media disinformation

After the recent Fox/EA debacle I have been thinking just how far from the mainstream media the games industry really is. This is certainly not the first time a mainstream media gets it wrong. Sure we are still a form of underground culture but as a media form we should be a lot more prominent then we really are. Lets look at some numbers, in a recent lecture by Raph Koster he claimed that Youtube had a 190 million users each week. By contrast the second mostly sold console ever, the ps2, sold just above 100million (around 130 I think).

Now this are just two numbers and I don’t claim they paint an accurate picture about the state of the games industry as a media form. But I think most gamers meet this attitude of “what? games? you mean children’s toys?” pretty often.
We might be using a lot of money for our hobby, but I think we have to face that games just aren’t mainstream yet by a long shot. Sure, World of Warcraft broke down a lot of barriers. But that was just a first step for games into the world of media, or what do you think? Am I just rambling here?

I think everyone can enjoy games, what we lack is accessibility to the gameplay (less fiddly controls to perform functions) and a wider and perhaps more mature content set (no? a shooter with burly men and only you can save the world? how original…).

Let’s push more games into mainstream. Go Buzz! Go Singstar! Go Brain Training! Go.. Peggle? (It really is awesome)