what's so funny?

Last night I watched Charlie Brooker's newest in the '-wipe' series, Gameswipe. Even though touted as a one off, I don't think it should be. The program was a compressed encyclopedic look at games, with a touch of critique - as always - thrown in here and there. I enjoyed it. I laughed. This is probably because I am a great fan of games, and, unfortunately, fall prey to the in-jokes that you aren't socially allowed to understand. I won't go into the grisly details. But with ownership of consoles increasing, especially the Wii, notoriously family orientated and with just that touch of easy-listening quality, should information about videogames - and all that is involved with them - be more accessible, more mainstream? Around a quarter of all UK households own a console of some sort - and this is the key word, I think: HOUSEHOLDS. Not a quarter of all geeks, a quarter of all single men, a quarter of all odd-bods, but a quarter of households. This means real people. Videogames have a terrible picture painted of them, and as Brooker mentioned, it is more often than not because of violence and swearing and all sorts. I'm quite sure cinema probably had the same reaction when it was in its early stages (as videogames are; realistically, their history only spans 25-ish years), and photography as well, and probably, although I'm not presenting it as fact, the written word was demonised thousands of years ago. Marks that mean words! Cameras taking souls! Films being entertaining and realistic! Videogames providing escapist fun! Make it stop!

But the worst thing, or the thing that is a shame, is that videogames are not allowed the same graces that film and television get, meaning, they are forgotten about, and this one quarter of households have to really search to find any decent information about what good games to buy. Gamesmaster looks dated now, but it had the right idea. As Jonathan Ross is allowed Film Two-Thousand and Whatever, because it is socially acceptable to watch films of course, why is it strange and unbelievable that a counterpart may be allowed to exist? A sort of Game Two-Thousand and Whatever. I'm sure you have probably all noticed that there are adverts on television for videogames - they are slowly becoming mainstream, and will only continue to do so; there are only more people being born into a world where consoles already exist, rather than videogames being 'invented' within living memory, so it makes for a more accepting generation. I think this was illustrated quite well on Gameswipe, maybe not intentionally, when Mark Kermode (probably on the One Show) said something like "I've never played a videogame and I hope I never will again". This is an example of someone who was not born 'into' the videogame era, and so probably will never 'get it'. It may not be true of everybody, however, because anomalies exist everywhere. Children growing up with a console in the home, much as children growing up with a PC or a television, will see it as part of their life. Material, violent, expensive, timewasting... but then again, nothing has ever been material, or violent, or expensive, or timewasting, has it? It is just a matter of time until videogames are 'normal'.

Games are hardly discussed outside circles of friends and internet forums, in spite of their actual popularity. This is why Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe was not only a surprise, but a little knock-knocking on the door of sense and normality. With gaming now pretty much established as something that is here to stay, I don't see why there can't be a regular platform for reviews and discussion which can cater for its only-growing audiences. It is just as valid a medium as film or literature, by which we can be just as validly entertained, but in which we can become more involved, because there is that added factor that we are playing the game, not just watching it or reading it.