Artifact selection

I have chosen video games as the pop culture artifact I will examine this semester. Whether we realize it or not video games pervade countless aspects of our society. While they may have started with simple roots in Pong, video games are now as commonplace as movies and books. Little children play on game consoles in their homes. Old people are playing Wii. Construction workers are playing WOW. The number of citizens who play games is astounding. Even if you claim that you don’t play video games you probably don’t realize that you actually are. Solitaire at work and those cheesy games at the bar count as video games. Our society has evolved the entertainment of a movie or book into a medium that draws on the qualities of both while most importantly being interactive. You cannot interact and make calculated decisions while reading a book (Choose Your Own Adventure does not count) or watching a movie but you are forced to interact and think with the story of a game. Games are the evolution of entertainment in our world today. While there are games of all types of complexity their ultimate goal is to delight their audience while forcing them to actively think and interact. I want to investigate and explore the effects video games have on our everyday society. I want to see how the influence of games has grown over time, how it is influencing now, and what it may bring in the future. Hopefully as the semester continues we all will be able to see how games are a beneficial medium and what its effects are.