Video Games - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 33

forms can for decades be stuck in its artistic development and audience per-
ception. This subculturization process is mainly in the hands of the indus-
try. The video game medium will not by sheer and uncontrolled momentum
evolve into a global mass medium. Substantial ef ort must be invested into
the development and reinterpretation of the video game medium beyond
the strict confi nes of the hardcore-controlled subculture; otherwise it will
evolve deeper into its own sophisticated yet esoteric expression forms that
are increasingly confusing the outsiders. As mentioned previously, the out-
spoken hardcore gamers are not pleased with the ef orts put forth thus far
by the industry. Will the industry leave the hardcore culture behind and
risk their outrage?
Technology—Mass-Cultural Game Technologies
New game technologies such as Wii, Kinect, smartphones, Flash games
or OnLive's cloud gaming platform have all shown us how games fi nd
themselves in practically every new type of computing device out there.
Technological innovation within the game industry has always been, and
still is, astonishing. Wii's innovative new input devices (later inspiring
Xbox Kinect and PlayStation Move ) have shown that new input devices
can act as enablers and platforms for change and mass-market expansion.
However, the traditional game industry has its fair share of idiosyncrasies:
despite being the fi rst truly digital cultural industry it was paradoxically
one of the last to full-heartedly embrace digital distribution. This might
be due to industry political aspects such as copy protection concerns and
reliance on physical resellers—but it defi nitely hasn't helped the industry
to expand to the global mainstream. The game industry has a history
of digital business model innovation (for instance, massively multiplayer
online game [MMOG] subscription models). It has, however, frequently
been bogged down by its own internal industry politics: why insist on
selling MMOGs in boxes when they are played online? Why has the game
industry always developed (over?)expensive and subsidized game consoles
(as part of the industry spiral) with ever-increasing polygon counts—when
the Wii has shown that innovative games can be produced at a much more
modest budget?
Political/Societal Dimension—New Communicational Powers
Games can, will and are increasingly used as marketing/PR/communica-
tion/political tools (see. e.g. advergames or the America's Army game).
However, the industry must in its path to mass-cultural acceptance take
better care of its own communication—as a medium and brand. The never-
ending debate of video games and violence, the codifi cation of the games
medium as childish, techy, nerdy, macho, gory, lowbrow, asocial and eso-
teric—where do these associations arise? Are these misinterpretations? Or