Video Gaming: Have We Seen It All?

There is a certain 'thing weren't like this in my day' quality to the comment above, an echo of those 'that's not proper music' or 'young people today don't know they're born' sentiments that draw an easy laugh and in this case conjure up the stereotype of game players as nerdy ne'er-do-wells entranced by a flickering screen in a darkened bedroom. The fact that it's a stereotype should make it easy to dismiss, but to do so would be to ignore the insights that even stereotypes like this can give us into the rapid evolution of games as an economic, cultural and artistic force, how the technology has influenced creators, and what might be in store for a generation born into a world where video games have always existed - a generation just a little behind mine.