Video games: Mainstream entertainment

Gamers are no longer the marginalized geeky kids with highly developed thumb muscles - not in the minds of experts following the gaming industry, anyway. Because that industry, now called "interactive entertainment," last year "topped $7 billion, closing in on the $9 billion film industry," and nearly half of US homes own one game player and 23% own more than three, the Christian Science Monitor reports, gamers are very mainstream. They "are going to be the prime engine of our economy and society," the Monitor quotes Robert Andersen of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. The crucial question is whether games can keep getting better, more creative, whether they can move beyond first-person shooter versions of Hollywood blockbusters. Look for some great examples in the Monitor piece. See also the BBC on consumers in the driver's seat in digital entertainment. For more coverage, see "Bans on violent video game sales" and "Video games' upside." [NFN covers gaming a lot. The best way to find our latest coverage is to go to our index page and do a page search (hit the Control or Apple key and "F") for "game."]