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Digital Games Industries:
Developments, Impact and Direction

Press Start Button for Entertainment to Begin: Computer Games Industry and its Consumers

Susana Tosca
Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Keywords: computer games, digital culture, popular culture, entertainment, postmodern industry, reception, consumption.

The digital gaming industry already has an enormous cultural influence measurable not only in the numbers of titles or consoles sold, but also in the amount of young people that experience computer games as a part of their daily life, as games carve a niche for themselves as a main leisure activity comparable to television or cinema. We cannot understand their growing cultural significance without looking at them as products of a mass production industry characteristic of modern capitalism. The purpose of this paper is to look into the intersection game industry-consumers in relation to the nature of computer games as mass-produced, popular entertainment and the cultural values associated with it.

Ever since Adorno and the Frankfurt school started worrying about the consequences of the "massification" of culture, there has been a theoretical struggle among those who have tried to define consumers of mass cultural products and their relationship to the said products; be it to be presented as passive, nearly mindless recipients; or to be idealized as rebels able to twist the mass product and use it in creative ways. Both discourses can be found in relationship to computer games, opposite yet very much related since they both spring from the implicit understanding of computer games as entertainment and therefore, "low" popular culture.

None of these aspects has been sufficiently investigated so far. This paper will look into the nature of the computer game industry as a technology-driven market solely dedicated to entertainment . It will critically examine the industry's assumptions and rationale by working with original statements and material from game companies and game industry professionals, such as interviews, articles and product marketing campaigns, in order to determine what is the "ideal consumer" the industry is working for.

Is the industry's idea of game consumer the same than the consumer have about themselves? How do they consume games? Do they ever turn into producers? Issues like modernity, culture and subcultures, and resistance will be examined in relationship to computer games, applying theories by Fredric Jameson, Johan Fornäs, Mackay and others to the analysis of gamers' own reflections about their activity and their role as consumers.

In true dialogical spirit, this paper enquires if there is a disparity between the interests of computer games consumers and those of industry, concluding with hopefully new insights into computer games as a cultural product.

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor. (1972) 1991. The Culture Industry. London: Routledge.

Dodsworth, Clark. 1998. Digital Illusion. Entertaining the Future with High Technology. Boston: ACM Press/Addison-Wesley.

Eco, Umberto. (1979) 1984. The Role of the Reader. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Fornäs, Johan. 1995. Cultural Theory and Late Modernity. London: Sage.

Jameson, Fredric. (1991) 1995. Postmodernism. The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duram: Duke University Press.

Lofland, J./Lofland, L.H. 1995. Analyzing Social Settings: a Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis. Belmont: Wadsworth.

Mackay, H. (ed) 1997. Consumption and Everyday Life. London: Sage/Open University.

Patton, M. 1990. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods, Newbury Park: Sage.

Postman, Neil. (1985) 1986. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. London: Heinemann.

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Digital Games Industries: Developments, Impact and Direction

Press Start Button for Entertainment to Begin: Computer Games Industry and its Consumers

Digital Games Industries:
Developments, Impact and Direction