By Chase Stevens ’12
THE ROUNDUP

Explosions are everywhere, gunshots ring out, there’s a helicopter in the sky and I have to go capture the other team’s flag.

This experience is not so uncommon to kids today thanks to videogames.

According to an article by USA Today, 97 percent of kids today play videogames. Over half play videogames daily.

The numbers might seem high, but it makes sense. Who doesn’t know who Mario or Master Chief are?

Of course that doesn’t imply people play the same games, but what it does mean is that videogames are becoming a part of our lives.

When our parents were growing up, they could only play either board games or sports, and they could only play those games with people nearby. A lucky few could play “Pong” on the original Atari – mind blowing technology at the time.

Today, one can play a game of “Guitar Hero” with his friend across town, a relative living on the opposite side of the country or with a stranger in Hong Kong.

Not only that, but videogames are still growing.

According to online gaming news source Joystiq, “Call of Duty: Black Ops” earned more than $1 billion in revenue in one month. Only a handful of movies have grossed more than $1 billion.

In addition, the videogame industry grew 16.7 percent from 2005 through 2008, while the U.S. economy grew 2.8 percent in the same time period.

What this all means is that videogames are going to have a lasting influence on our generation. Just like how campy 80’s movies like “16 Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” helped define our parents’ generation, so will videogames define aspects of our own generation.