Within this generation, it seems that "gaming" is further appealing to new demographics, most notably the Nintendo Wii which broadened possibilities for game interactions and made games more approachable for people that wouldn't have necessarily been interested otherwise. Technological developments have drived a lot of new interest and development in the industry both large and small scale, like the multitude of small developers (like me!) making games for smaller platforms like the iPhone which allows small groups of people to make it into larger scale game development when they wouldn't necessarily. All this development has spurred rapid growth even in this economic recession; it sounds good and should be good, but is it really?

This development probably (I'm saying this because of my age) started from when it was first born. At first in the 1960's it was mainly restricted and non-commercial, with people experimenting with the new technologies being developed. Going into the 1980's the consumer video game systems properly started and although a lot more games were being developed and a lot more people were playing them than before, it was still in the great minority to a minority of people who had a great interest for the kind of thing; and you would have to be with the basic graphics and complex commands and systems it had and demanded. Sure there was the odd Spider-Man game or movie tie-in, but the lack of interest kept these to a minimum. Sixteen years on and the fifth generation of consoles started, boasting 3D graphics, new input methods and bigger budgets. With the advance in technology developers could make games a lot more immersive and approachable. I don't need to go on but if you see my point, video games haver become a lot more popular and approachable with development, as the games themselves can be accepted by a larger audience.

This attraction of new demographics being interested in video games though is what worries me, and is perfectly exhibited on Nintendo's two systems; the Nintendo Wii and DS. When the DS started in Europe it had a reasonably good line up of "games" with the odd bad one like "Sprung" and "Ping Pals" for example which purely aimed at a young demographic newly coming into the video game industry, not considerating quality. This type of game though is now prominent in the DS and Wii catalogue, "games" that could barely scratch up to the name because of the developers who are much more concerned in targeting it to that naive young demographic than actually being passionate in what they do, unlike 20 years ago. That focus is what evidently gets them sold, because people don't think about it, they'll just buy it because it "looks fun" or is cheap.

Consumer demand effectively feeds this decline and the publishers and developers are giving them what they want. Although there are still plenty of developers who are striving to make games for the game, the majority seems to be slipping further and further against the businesses of the industry. With this, it seems the eventuality is that there will be little in the future, with the gaming industry being bled dry by the ignorance of its users and the businesses and developers, both big and small, that are milking them. I guess this decline in development is reflective of the Music and Movie industries as well and you have to ask yourself whether it is an inevitability for Videogames, that have become a part of modern culture to go the same way, but nonetheless this wouldn't be a good thing for us as a society to be niave and ignorant to this would it?

As people have highlighted below, i'm probably imagining a little too worse than it will actually be, it will probably even fare better than the current state of media like movies over time because of peoples love and affection that keeps going into the games that people create and buy, but the overall point of the rant? For the sake of the industry, no matter how small the impact, please be aware of what you are buying.