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New Blog. History of video games.

In the video game industry, the unofficial fifth generation of video game consoles gave way to three dimensional environments. This move to tri-dimensional gaming meant a move away from traditional side scrollers and rail movement games and towards open environments. Finally there was depth, along with width and height! Games such as Super Mario 64 highlighted this transition. 

The most popular systems of the fifth generation of gaming were the Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation and the Atari Jaguar. The days or marketing the console through its processor power or bits are beginning to fade in the era with the Nintendo 64 being the last to highlight this feature.

The games being offered were ones which touted the advent of three dimensional realms. Players were now free to roam around the confines of the 3D world. New levels of exploration are enabled creating an increased sense of agency. This sense of agency   is provided through the increased ability of gamers to control more aspects of movement, vision and control within the digital environments.It can be though of as gamers having more control and more because now they can go up or down as well as near or far. First person shooters with new zoom features took advantage of this new depth of field vision enabled with three dimensional environments.

A sense of agency seems to be what developers are trying to incorporate into present day games. This comes in a number of different ways. Realism through graphics presents video games in a more lifelike manner, increasing the realism and essentially making what is happening on the screen even closer to reality. This realism works together with the huge amount of options, choices and actions gamers may choose to perform or not within the environments. The three dimensional environments now feature an incredible amount of interactive objects which the gamer may or may not choose to interact with. The power of choice and the ability to act out choices within games gives players a sense of agency through the ability to do whatever the gamer wants to do within the game. Some games have no endings, while others make completing the game optional. Players are now able to leave their mark in virtual worlds,  instead of just being able to wander in them. 

I believe some reasons for these changes is a greater understanding of why people play videogames. Some people enjoy getting engrossed in missions, while others enjoy the social aspects, and others still enjoy the release of stress through gaming. While not dependent on technology (the Wii chooses not to keep up graphically with Sony and Microsoft), it does still play a part in the development of gamer agency. This understanding is happening world wide. Globalization is key socially and  culturally to the changing environment (both immediate and electronic). The world is smaller while at the same time creating a huge online world. Agency through videogames is a way of asserting an identity in the electronic world. This agency is created through the incredible amount of choices gamers have. Do they want a social game, a quick stress relief or a tactical exercise in logic? It all depends on the choices each gamer makes.