between a retro cult and a new way of seeing the world

Meanwhile, as usually happens every summer, many Argentines meet again with “the fichines” in the arcades of the Atlantic Coastteenager Willis Gibson is in the news for being the first person to beat the classic Tetris.

In the midst of the boom in ultra-realistic and immersive video games, classics are back in fashionwhile the academy is finally interested in this art form that has shaped new identities and experiences.

In Video games as culturea book recently published in our country by the Ampersand label, sociologists Daniel Muriel and Garry Crawford maintain that we are in the presence of a phenomenon that goes far beyond simple recreational entertainmentbut rather it is a hermeneutic key to think about contemporary reality and the link between technology and society.

Thus, the invitation is to understand video games as “an expression of the life and culture of late modernity” that helps us understand areas such as work, education, culture, power and empathy, among other aspects. . In an illuminating passage, the authors explain how the current notion of identity, more fragile and elastic than that of the 20th century, was anticipated and is exploited by the gamer community.

While in the past the definition of who we were was anchored in devices that seemed permanent, such as those linked to the State and civic responsibilities, today the gamer identity is based on consumption and habits that are being transformed, a possible destiny that we will all soon share.

And although the video game industry is taking leaps and bounds, not only in terms of technology but also in business, the interest in retrograming (the expression in English to refer to the classic titles from the 1980s and 1990s) also seems to be growing without limits.

The Tetris boom, for example, is not only personified in the boy who defeated it four decades after its creation, but also on platforms like YouTube. A thousand times more content linked to classic games was uploaded on the video portal in 2023 than in 2007, and all it takes is a brief search to discover a veritable ocean of material on the subject, especially in the United States, Russia, Brazil and Japan. In the latter country, for example, one of the most watched channels is @gccx20th, a television program that began airing 20 years ago.

In our country the phenomenon also has its notable exponents, such as the excellent paper magazine Replayfocused on the Argentine experience of the “8 and 16 bit generation” (whose collection can be consulted at revistareplay.com.ar), and documentary podcasts History mode y did it containfull of analysis and testimonies.

And those who want to delve even deeper into a local look at the world of video games can read Gamer phenomena, a book signed by the Argentine Nicolás Rábagowhich analyzes the eight central milestones of its story, from the appearance of the Italian plumber Mario and his brother Luigi to the limitless passion for Pokémon.