Defining video games involves a bit of fuzzy science these days. Arcades of the 1980s or home consoles such as the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation may immediately spring to mind, but games on smartphones, social networks, and (soon) a new wave of virtual reality devices are constantly evolving the medium and expanding the player population to just about everyone you know. There is no one element that makes a video game a video game, but Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani attempts to capture the medium's essence: "Video games differ from other manufactured goods in that they are the rare product to simultaneously be electrical, mechanical, and works of art; they aggregate a range of ideas from the fields of engineering to literature to art to psychology, and they provide society with a necessary cultural tool of 'play.'"
展开▼
