For any fan of video games today, they may have realized a certain breed of game that has risen to prevalence over the years after a large period of time languishing in the “underground” of conventional games development. These games have become more prominent due to the fan bases which support them, and also due to the constant attention from mainstream gaming media and larger gaming companies. These are independent games - games that are created without the boon of a publisher’s funding. Usually crafted by smaller teams of designers, artists and programmers, the independent gaming movement is looked upon as the “punk era of gaming culture” (as explained by indie developer, Rami Ismail). These “indie” games aren’t conforming to certain trends in the big leagues of game development, and sometimes they’re made for either pure fun, the sake of delivering a message through the gaming medium, or whatever purpose the developer chooses to create their game for. It’s exactly hard to pinpoint when the movement directly began, as there was no smoking gun which led to its creation. However, the assumption is that the origins can be traced back to the 1970s, even before there was an established video game industry. Early indie games were created by programmers, and were distributed among friends as shareware (during the very early days of the Internet) in the 1990s. However, in contrast to the many opportunities which lie in wait for prospective indie developers, the opportunity to publish a game became more difficult as the industry grew. Console manufacturers weren’t looking for garage developers to put their works on their systems, because they didn’t look like they meant business (no real company), and judging by their place as smaller... ... middle of paper ... ...air, Brendan. ""Indie Is the New Punk" - Vlambeer." GamesIndustry International. Gamer Network, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. . Griliopoulos, Dan. "The State of Indie Gaming." TechRadar. Future, 12 Nov. 2012. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. . "Tech Talk: The Indie Video Game Movement." Tech Talk. N.p., 10 Mar. 2012. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. . Brophy-Warren, Jamin. "Joysticks and Easy Riders." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 20 Dec. 2008. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. . "The Indie Game Movement." Indiegames.com. UBM Tech, 28 Sept. 2007. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. .
Waits, Jennifer C. "Does ‘indie’ Mean Independence? Freedom and Restraint in a Late 1990s US College Radio Community." The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media 5.2&3 (2008): 83-96. Print.
In the early 1950s when Rock and Roll was born, it was so new and so different than anything heard before that by the time the above song was released more than 25 years later, it seemed like nothing had existed before it. Punk Rock had a similar effect on the music scene. Just as the original Rock and Roll was embraced by the youth culture as something new, exciting and possibly dangerous, Punk Rock was embraced by many as a new revolution with the potential to change everything. But did it? This essay will address the question of whether Punk Rock changed anything. It will focus on the business and industry that evolved within and around the punk scene, the politics of punk and the internal ideological debates within the scene.
There was an emergence of numerous pioneering female punk and rock musicians from the UK, throughout the period of the late 1970 and early-mid 1980’s who ultimately served to influence the ‘Riot Grrrl’ movement (Sabin 1999). Musicians such as ‘The Slits’, ‘Siouxie Sioux’, ‘Poly Styrene and X-Ray-Spex’ ‘Au Pairs’ and ‘The Raincoats’ are all examples of British Musicians who later went on to inspire ‘Riot Grrl’
Kent, S. (2001). The Ultimate History of Video Games. New York City, New York: Three Rivers Press.
Clark, D. (2003). The death and life of punk: The last subculture. Retrieved from http://utoronto.academia.edu/DylanClark/Papers/32839/The_Death_and_Life_of_Punk_The_Last_Subculture
The result is a new breed of fresh and exciting game genres that people in the early 1980s could only dream about. Video games is a huge industry and it is estimated that 70% of U.S homes will own a Video game system by the year 2005 (Cassandra, 2002). The idea of making a video game first appeared in 1949 when a young engineer named Ralph Baer was given an assignment to build the absolute, best of all televisions. He wanted to go beyond his original assignment and incorporate some kind of game into the set but it would take another 20 years for his idea to become a reality.
By the late ‘70s, punk had finished and become an amazing genre with a following triple the size from when it was just garage musicians. Becoming the solid musical force no one in that time saw coming. With this rise in popularity comes many sub-genres of punk. New musicians embraced the DIY movement and began to create their own individual scenes with specific sounds.
  Kristiansen, Lars J.. Screaming for change: articulating a unifying philosophy of punk rock. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010. Print.
In 2012, software and hardware sales in the video games industry raked up more than over $65 billion dollars in revenue in comparison to just $10 billion dollars seven years prior. These statistics indicate that the gaming industry is not only one of the largest and fastest growing businesses in the world, but showcase that it is also outperforming other similarly popular mediums of entertainment such as film, books, and music in terms of revenue and annual growth. In the short fifty years that video games have been around, they’ve quickly become an integral part of the lives of many and are only continuing to increasing in popularity. I’m sure that everyone can attest to knowing at least one or two people who engage in regular video game playing activity. However, despite being a common leisurely activity and hobby for many in today’s society, there is still a shocking level of stigma surrounding the medium. There are various stereotypes in place which attribute to the stigma - from the gaming community mainly consisting of young adolescent boys to gamers being socially inept individuals; these ideas and the way video games are unfairly scrutinized and misrepresented in the media (by those who
Instead of the franchises popularity having a positive impact, overtime, it infected the gaming market along with it’s consumers and developers such as Microsoft Game Studios and EA. It has become an aggrandized cancer on the face of video games everywhere, destroying franchises a...
Everyone is different in their own unique ways. We are characterized by what we wear, what we look like, how we walk, and how we move. We are also characterized by our likes, dislikes, hobbies, and more. In addition to all of this, each one of us is characterized by what culture we are a part of. We represent that culture and its subcultures in unique and interesting ways. Today, I will share with you what subculture I belong to. I belong to a subculture of gaming, and I will talk about how, when, and why I participate in this culture.
Video games have come a long way. They have evolved from the simple game of Pong into a complex, multi-platform, multi-genre, multi-billion dollar industry.
3. “Video Games” by Chris Jozefowics. Published by Gareth Stevens Publishing 2010. Pleasantville, NY 10570-70000 USA. Produced by Editorials Directions Inc.
"Interest In Gaming Grows With Focus On Competitiveness, Engagement And Critical Thinking. (Cover Story)." Electronic Education Report 14.12 (2007): 1-3.
In society’s current era of technological advancement, video games have gone a long way since they were first created. Video games in the twenty-first century are no longer just toys or junk in the lifestyles of the youth. They have become innovative inventions that not only entertain its users, but also help aid the people in both the academic field and in jobs. The influences that video games bring about in the culture of the youth today are, in fact, not the negative influences that most people think. Video games are actually this generation’s new medium for educating the youth. The information they learn are also mostly positive and useful things that they may apply in their future lives (Prensky 4). In a generation that revolves around technology and connectivity, developers and educators have already been able to produce fun and interesting games that can teach and train people. Video game developers and educators should continue to collaborate in order to create more positive, educational, and appealing games.