Paradigm shift: How the evolution of two generations of home consoles, arcades, and computers influenced American culture, 1985-1995

As of 2016, unlike many popular media forms found here in the United States, video games possess a unique influence, one that gained its own a large widespread appeal, but also its own distinct cultural identity created by millions of fans both here stateside and across the planet. Yet, despite its significant contributions, outside of the gaming's arcade golden age of the early 1980s, the history of gaming post Atari shock goes rather unrepresented as many historians simply refuse to discuss the topic for trivial reasons thus leaving a rather noticeable gap within the overall history. One such important aspect not covered by the majority of the scholarship and the primary focus of thesis argues that the history of early modern video games in the North American market did not originate during the age of Atari in the 1970s and early 1980s. Instead, the real genesis of today's market and popular gaming culture began with the creation and establishment of the third and fourth generation of video games, which firmly solidified gaming as both a multi-billion dollar industry and as an accepted form of entertainment in the United States.;This project focuses on the ten-year resurrection of the US video game industry from 1985 to 1995. Written as a case study, the project looks into the three main popular hardware mediums of the late 1980s and 1990s through a pseudo-business, cultural, and technological standpoint that ran parallel with the current events at the time. Through this evaluation of the home consoles, personal computers, and the coin operated arcade machines, gaming in America transformed itself from a perceived fad into a serious multi-billion dollar industry while at the same time, slowly gained popular acceptance. Furthermore, this study will examine the country's love-hate relationship with gaming by looking into reactions towards a Japanese-dominated market, the coming of popular computer gaming, the influence of the bit-wars, and the issue of violence that aided in the establishment of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).;In order to undertake such a massive endeavor, the project utilizes various sources that include newspapers, magazine articles, US government documents, scholarly articles, video game manuals, commercials, and popular websites to complete the work. Furthermore, another vital source came from firsthand experience playing several of these popular video games from across the decades in question, which include such consoles as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Genesis, home computer, and several notable arcade titles.;The project's goal and its four main chapters serves as a historical viewpoint of towards neglected video game industry during the third and fourth generation of gaming and the influence it possess in the United States. For far too long, historians have ignored this area of discussion as a viable topic. Perhaps this case study will encourage further exploration and help curb the rampant imbalance between the pure but nearly non-existent historical accounts versus the ubiquitous non-historical accounts. Nevertheless, for this project's primary contribution this project it takes the numerous sources available and expands upon the already written upon history, or in this case the period of video rebirth and regrowth after the North American video game crash of 1983. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).