Most people recognize that mainstream society has a direct effect on the video game industry. It is largely because of the popularity of The Dark Knight movie that people got interested in the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game. However, the reverse is also just as true. Gaming culture has come to infiltrate our daily lives, entering into arenas that aren’t directly related to video games at all.
If you told someone that a certain product was shaped like Pac-Man, they’d know that you mean a circle with a wedge cut out of it. We’ve also seen references to Pac-Man in popular television shows, with so many of us recognizing the iconic “waka-waka” speech pattern of everyone’s favorite ghost hunter.
Some games just turned out to be more influential than others, truly shaping mainstream society and culture into what they are today. Here are a few of the biggest, in chronological order.
Super Mario Bros: Plumber Defines a Generation
Yes, it is absolutely true that Mario was preceded by such classics as Frogger and Space Invaders, but Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Nintendo Famicom in Japan) introduced the first mascot of gaming. We see mascots for just about every other type of product or service, but Mario represented the first for the gaming market. He just happened to be a plumber on a mission.
It wasn’t much later that we started to see Mario-themed merchandise and products expand into just about every other realm in our lives. You can buy Mario t-shirts, Mario figurines, Mario coffee mugs, Mario toothbrushes, and so much more. You probably remember the Mario cartoon with Captain Lou Albano and the movie with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo.
Some people may be more interested in Master Chief and Solid Snake these days, but it is undeniable that Mario will continue to hold a special place in our hearts as the first true video game icon. The pudgy Italian carpenter endures to this day, expanding his skill set into driving go-karts, playing soccer, and even competing in the Olympic Games.
Mario continues to be popular, pervasive, and relevant to this day. He may have expanded into other areas, but we still love him for his platforming and that’s why New Super Mario Bros. Wii is one of the more highly anticipated titles this year.
I own three Mario t-shirts myself and I get comments on them all the time, even from people who don’t play video games. Yes, Mario is mainstream.
Tetris: Everyone Likes a Good Puzzle
The traditional concept of a puzzle would be something like a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe you would think about brain teasers and those little science toys that are meant to twist your brain. Those may still hold their value, but the real puzzles of today come in the form of puzzle games.
Going back over 20 years, we find some random Russian guy working on military strategies and somehow he ends up inventing Tetris. Just like Mario, Tetris became a cultural icon of its day and it ushered in the genre of puzzle games. It is thanks, in part, to Tetris that we are now bombarded with alternative options like Bejeweled, Peggle, and Super Puzzle Fighter.
Contra: Up Up Down Down Left Right…
Many people may know it as the Contra Code, but it is perhaps more appropriate to refer to the sequence of button presses as the Konami Code. That’s because Contra is actually not the first time that Konami made use of that sequence, but it quickly became the most popular place to use. Let’s face it. Contra was deathly difficult and normal human beings can’t pass it on just three lives. Thirty is much more manageable.
Up up down down left right left right B A start. It’s a sequence that is burned into the skulls of anyone who played the NES game back in the day, but you can also find it infiltrate areas of contemporary life that really have nothing to do with the game. A free album from Coldplay is called Left Right Left Right. Try entering the code (on your keyboard) in Google Reader. It works there too.
On a side note, if you want to brush up on some nostalgia, everyone is raving about Contra Rebirth as WiiWare on the Nintendo Wii. There’s no online gameplay, but everyone says it’s worth the ten bucks.
Mortal Kombat: Making Way for Jack Thompson’s Brigade
Anyone who knows my gaming habits will know that I love fighting games the most and that I still prefer Street Fighter over just about everything else, but if you want to talk about influencing mainstream culture, there is one franchise that rises above the rest: Mortal Kombat.
Sure, you could talk about the revolutionary graphics of 1992, but what Mortal Kombat did was open up a whole can of worms about the negative impact of video game violence on children. With all that blood, guts, and over-the-top gore, Mortal Kombat quickly attracted the ire of parent groups.
Before concerned parents cried out over the bloody violence in Mortal Kombat, there was no such thing as video game warnings or the ESRB rating scale. There was no such thing as being rated M for Mature, since it was up to the parents to decide what game was and was not appropriate for their children.
It was also because of games like Mortal Kombat (and later, Grand Theft Auto) that we started to see activists like Jack Thompson rally the troops against the video game industry and how it is corrupting our society. Mortal Kombat paved the way for Thompson to attack video games for everything from learning disorders to the Columbine tragedy.
Video games were once perceived as harmless distractions, since all we did was guide a plumber through a series of pipes. With Mortal Kombat, that all changed and the state of concerned parents would never be the same again.
Doom: And So the Frag Is Born
It started out as a term that only players of first-person shooters would know, but it seems that everyone understands the meaning of “frag” these days. Most people may not be quite as familiar with its etymology and origin, however.
Some have said that the term “frag” was first used in Doom, referring to how you could “fragment” your enemies. This was literally blowing them to bits (fragments), since this was different from a true kill. A kill is final and permanent. A frag is temporary, since the player will re-spawn elsewhere. You know, like how you can blow the T-1000 Terminator into a million pieces and he’ll just re-create himself again.
The term “frag” has become so pervasive that we even have major gaming events named after it, whether or not they are directly related to the act of shooting your opponents at all. Frag on.
Guitar Hero: Plastic Instruments Invade Living Rooms
Guitar Hero was not the first rhythm game and it was not the first game to make use of little plastic instruments. For that, I think we should give credit to Konami and Bemani for creating their series of music games. We saw Drum Mania and Guitar Freaks well before the first Guitar Hero was released here. However, mainstream “Western” culture knew nothing of them.
The biggest hurdle that prevented Guitar Freaks (which only had three fret buttons) from hitting mainstream North American culture was its playlist. Some of us may have been interested in manga and anime, but fewer were interested in J-Pop. With Guitar Hero, we got songs that were relevant to the society on this side of the Pacific.
It didn’t get off to the fastest of starts, but Guitar Hero is about as mainstream as it gets today. Everyone’s living room is cluttered with plastic guitars. They even had a parody of it on South Park.
Whether you’re a fan of Guitar Hero or you prefer Rock Band, the side effects are the same.
Our society has learned that it doesn’t really want to enjoy its music passively anymore. They want to engage it actively. Rhythm games have also shaped how bands aim to make money with their music. Some have chosen to release their music as free downloads, but you have to buy their tracks as DLC in Rock Band.
Perhaps even more importantly, a whole generation of gamers is being introduced to music that they may not have otherwise given a chance. How many teenagers would have looked up Foghat or David Bowie? How many mainstream listeners would find themselves enjoying Paramore, Coheed and Cambria, or Die Toten Hosen?
Wii Sports: Granny’s Got Game Too
The assumption that many people had was that while early video games like Galaga and Pong were approachable by most, current games have grown to be far too complex for the uninitiated. Call of Duty looks far too complicated and you can’t expect the average soccer mom to understand the intricacies of Halo 3: ODST.
Whereas Sony and Microsoft continued catering to the hardcore gamers with their initial PS3 and Xbox 360 releases, Nintendo took a different direction altogether with the Wii. They made gaming easy, simple, and approachable again. With the “waggle” controls of the Wii Remote, Nintendo managed to attract everyone from 4-year-old Suzie to 80-year-old grandmas into the fold. Wii Sports was fun and easy-to-understand.
People who would not have otherwise considered buying a console suddenly wanted to buy a Wii. Later on, they wanted to get in shape with Wii Fit. Gaming suddenly became just as viable an entertainment option for non-gamers as watching a movie or surfing the Internet. Granny’s gotta game too.
The Enduring Influence of Video Games
Mainstream society may have a direct influence on the direction that the video game industry takes, but we must also recognize that the reverse is also just as true. Guitar Hero introduces us to new music. Gaming terms leak into regular conversations. Aunt Flo wants to play with your Wii…
And let’s not forget about the huge impact that MMORPGs like World of Warcraft have on mainstream culture too. The friends in your guild can suddenly become your friends in real life, working just as much like a social networking tool as Facebook or Twitter. And I think we all agree that Facebook and Twitter have had a massive impact on mainstream society.
Love This Article? Hate This Article? Tell Us In The Forums!