Gaming has evolved drastically since its beginning way back in the 1970's as a commercial medium. The first to fifth generation of gaming are jam packed. To explain the changes of gaming from gen 1 to gen 5 would take all day. Trust me it took me a whole day just to read the Wikipedia page. The beginning and the end are almost incomparable, except they aren't because even the very first games created are still available thanks to the Internet for many casual gamers alike. Basically, gaming was introduced in arcade environments with massive success, home consoles around the beginning were not very popular until the introduction of cartridge games that could be read by home consoles, rather than buying a console with set games programmed in. This began the 'omggottarunoutandbuythatcoolnewgamedude!' phase. Translation to today: people lining up for days to get into best buy to buy Halo 3. Chaos. The gaming audience was slowly (or quickly depending on how you look at it) formed. Who was responsible? University creative geniuses who saw computer systems as entertainment rather than 00100 001 00101 ! The gaming industry was born. There were many struggles to keep it out of the hands of corporate greed, for the expansion of gaming could only be achieved by those in it for the good of all gamers, to produce creating, challenging, and amazing graphics. Within 30 years sounds chips went from "bee-boop-bee" to recognizable everyday sounds and character voices. Graphics also evolved immensely because of gaming, and computer software as we know it today is in debt to the gaming industry that constantly pushed boundaries to be better than before.
Sixth & seventh generation gaming has turned into a major cut-throat battle between 3 major home console producing companies that churned out the Wii, PS3, and XBox360. A noticeable change in these generations is Wii's effort to market to 'non-gamers' (because everyone is a gamer at heart) and change the concept of the console controller to something immensely different and never attempted before. XBox360 and PS3 seem to be in competition for 'serious' gamers, by attempting to achieve the greatest graphics and hardware for gaming. They market almost strictly towards people who are already 'gamers' rather than those who are new to the world of gaming (like Wii did).
Overall I think that gaming has changed for the gamer a lot. Previously it was a challenge, you wanted to win, there were fun obstacles, etc. There is nothing wrong with that but I think the level of gaming in our lives has escalated to a point where games must become more relevant to the 'real world'. Gaming has become much more intertwined with various aspects of popular culture as well as serious issues. Wii challenges gaming stereotypes with WiiFit, and incorporating the physically challenging with the virtually stimulating. SecondLife allows for a virtual experiment of REAL life. There are endless capabilities. Also, the importance of multi-player and connectivity shows the importance of gaming and also how we as a society value a global network of people from different parts of the world.
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