Video Games - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 37

extensively describe the values, attributes, social mechanisms and indus-
trial strategies vis-à-vis this subculture. The industrial dimensions have
already been developed by my own previous research (Dymek 2004, 2005,
2010; Dymek and Rehn 2003). The possibly most exhaustive yet most com-
plex consequence is the way the perspective presents the limitations and
challenges faced by the global game industry. The main challenge is not
merely how to create, let say, new business models, social media strategies,
new platforms or electronic distribution systems—it is about transforming
the entire subculture—possibly even ignoring it, if one wants to prevent the
same fate as the comics medium faced.
It could be argued that the subcultural status of video games is no dif er-
ent than within other cultural industries—horror movie buf s, punk/house/
emo/etc. music fans, Harry Potter maniacs and others are all subcultures
based around media, and their respective symbiotic industry carefully nur-
tures and capitalizes on the subcultural dynamics created together by artists
and audiences. However, the major dif erence in the case of the hardcore
game subculture is the fact that it doesn't relate to a particular genre, art-
ist or even country—it relates to an entire medium, which is a completely
dif erent relationship altogether. For instance, music is enjoyed by almost
everyone, as it comprises a plethora of genres, subcultures, communities
and target groups. There are infl uential and opinion-leading subcultures
within the music industry landscape as well—reviewers, passionate music
fans, bloggers, journalists, etc. However, they never infl uence the entire
medium. “The average gamer” is associated with numerous attributes, aes-
thetical preferences and values that emanate from the game medium and
the subculture around it. Consider the following example: what type of
associations do we make when discovering a bookshelf full of topics in
a friend's apartment for the fi rst time? Compare the same situation when
we fi nd a game console and a shelf full of games. The heavy reader pro-
vides most likely neutral associations—he/she simply likes to read topics.
A gamer, on the other hand, is most likely male, eighteen to thirty-four
years old, interested in sports, likes action movies, interested in technology,
science-fi ction, maybe some fantasy, cars, the list goes on. Is it to possible to
make an equally extensive list for an average book reader? Or fi lm viewer?
Many claim that the game industry and medium have already reinter-
preted and reinvented themselves from their hardcore subcultural roots into
a truly mass-cultural “casual revolution” with “flexible designs [that] are
letting video games fit into the lives of players. Video games are being
reinvented, and so is our image of those who play the games. This is the
moment when we realize that everybody can be a video game player” (Juul
2009, 2). According to its proponents, the explosive popularity of social
gaming and smartphone games has vindicated the accuracy of its descrip-
tion. There are, however, a number of problematic assumptions behind this
perspective, which in many cases contains the very same arguments as the
conventional industry narrative of infi nite expansion.