An upcoming indie game called Vampire Therapist will dive deep into the minds of struggling vampires, allowing players to help them solve their inner issues. Many successful AAA games are sequels to previous games or belong to a known series. At the 2023 Game Awards, five of the six nominees were sequels, and the other nomination was Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which is part of one of the most well-known video game series in the world. When new IPs are released, they mostly fit into the formulas that have already been done hundreds of times before.
Do Popular Video Games Reflect What Society Is Scared Of?
02.01.2024 - 20:59 / mmorpg.com
Even in today’s modern age, video games are an often underappreciated art form when it comes to wider society. The majority of gamers know the impact and value that video games can offer, but folk who aren’t interested in games often miss why they’re so special to fans.
While some video games do exist purely for the sake of entertainment and stress relief, there’s plenty of titles that hold a lot more meaning than people give them credit for.
In fact, video games are often a fantastic lens to look at society through and can tell us quite a lot about the people who play them.
In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how popular video games often correlate to a desire of the general public or to a deep-rooted fear that society holds. We’ll also be looking at the cultural significance of some seemingly shallow or silly titles, too.
We’ll be using the word zeitgeist a few times in this article, so let’s take a quick look at what it actually means in this context.
German in origin, zeitgeist is a word that essentially means ‘spirit of the time’.
The term is often used when talking about a particular time or point in history, like the Renaissance or the roaring Twenties. It’s interesting to look at how the general vibe of a particular era is portrayed in popular media from that time, as things like films and games often tell us a lot about how people feel about the state of the world.
The inspiration for this article actually came from the popular theory that famous horror films often reflect the common fears of their era.
For example, the original Poltergeist film from the 80s can be taken to symbolize the then commonly held fear of new technologies entering the home and disrupting standard ways of living.
It’s possible to see the same parallels in video games. More often than not, you can look at a popular video game and unearth a reason why it’s so popular at any given moment.
Some of this may be deliberate on the part of the developer, some of it may be subconscious, and some of it may be pure coincidence. Let’s dive into a few specific examples of how video games can reflect what’s going on in society- either in terms of what people are scared of, or in terms of what they’re deeply craving.
Being in lockdown was a truly jarring experience, and that’s putting it mildly. It was a frightening time that completely upended most people’s standard routine — so is it any wonder that one of the most popular games during this time period was Animal Crossing: New Horizons ?
If you missed the ACNH boom, it’s a cozy life sim where you start a little village on a deserted island with cute animal characters. There’s no particular aim to the game. You can build a house, pay off the mortgage, pick fruit, speak
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