The Video Game as an Emergent Media Form

The emergent cultural form of the video game indicates two possible shifts in the direction of pop media. The success of the games with teenagers points towards a post broadcast era, where cinema and television are finally superseded as dominant media forms. The success of Nintendo and Sega points towards the growth of distinctively Japanese pop media styles within the global pop matrix. Both trends are difficult to analyse, but do lend themselves to the speculative form of the essay, within which one can trace the issues of gender, representation and desire they raise for media regulation and screen theory.