In the 1970s, video gaming was rather new and comparatively simple technology that attracted only the young and available to a select few. They were mostly seen at universities, played by the students on the university's computers. As time passed, however, gaming consoles started cropping up next to the TV in people's homes and more and more companies starting creating gaming. Now, a couple of decades later, studies have shown that video games are not only popular amongst children, but have attracted many older players as well. It has evolved into a major form of entertainment. The video gaming industry itself has been labelled “the fastest growing entertainment industry in America”. Results from the Computer Gaming World Game Buyer Universe Study stated that the average age of game buyers from a survey was 31 years old, hardly a young age at all. Video games may now be found everywhere; on computers and consoles at home, posted on the Internet, on portable systems such as the Game Boy, and even on cell phones and hand-held computers. It has become so popular that video games are now related with education and movies. In fact, Hollywood has enjoyed tremendous success with movies that are based on video games, such as the Tomb Raider series. Even so, in 2001, consumers spent $9.4 billion American dollars on products of the gaming industry, surpassing the revenues generated by Hollywood's box-offices. On the other hand, increasing numbers of books and movies, such as Harry Potter, are being adapted to video games.
One of the best indicators of the increasing popularity of video games is that video gaming has been taking up more and more of the time in the lives of people, especially young people, as a form of entertainment. Surveys on the time spent on video gaming have been conducted since the 1980s and the statistics collected support this perceived trend. It has been shown that young people of the 1980s spent an average of 4 hours a week gaming, but this number has risen to an average of 9 hours a week in recent times. It is also shown that in general, males are spending more time than females on video games. The arrival of the Microsoft Xbox game console is also a testament to the wide acceptance and high popularity of video games; or else, why in the world would Microsoft, predominantly a software developer, by interested in producing hardware for gaming? It must be the great popularity and hence great profitability of video games.