In September 2013, game designer Eric Zimmerman wrote what he called the Manifesto For A Ludic Century. His argument was that passive entertainment was a thing of the past, that interactive systems like games have beauty and meaning, and that they help us learn how to answer important questions. Also, they're really good fun.
The Guardian has been covering games for a long time; 10 years ago this summer the Games Blog began, providing a daily look at the most interesting stories from both the mainstream industry and the growing indie scene. This week, with the giant E3 video game event just days away, we felt it was time to celebrate that; to consider the past, but to think about how the games industry works now, and where it's going.
Over the next five days, we'll be bringing you a banquet of specially commissioned features celebrating and exploring games culture – and especially the games developed by British studios.
Although times have been hard, Britain remains in the top five game development countries in the world; it has over 500 studios creating games like Grand Theft Auto, Lego Star Wars, LittleBigPlanet, and Batman: Arkham City. What drives those developers? What makes Britain such a powerhouse in game development? This week, our games editor will be writer-in-residence at some of the UK's most successful studios to find out.
There are two distinct audiences coming to our games coverage: the committed gamers, and the newcomers or concerned parents who want to understand the games world that is such a big part of their children's lives.
We write for everyone, and this week we'll be featuring a series of features explaining some of the basics to people who may only have glimpsed games on a smartphone or through the crack of a teenager's bedroom door.
Games help us understand the world around us
This is a $70bn a year industry; games make more money than Hollywood box office. US research firm DFC Intelligence calculates that there are 1.4bn gamers in the world. We spend 3bn hours a week playing games. This is a mainstream, culturally significant industry often overlooked or dismissed.
We are moving into an era, as Zimmerman put it, where game literacy will be a vital skill; it will be crucial for understanding the consumer technology around us, but it will also be paramount in understanding how digital culture and business operate.
Games are becoming part of everything from finance and medicine to urban planning and education. Games help us to learn and to understand the world around us. We'll cover all that later too.
For now, welcome to games week.
Coming up this week:
• Keith Stuart on how artificial intelligence research for games will create virtual characters that inherit our personalities and achievements - and can be passed down to our children
• Stuart Heritage on why Guildford is the beating heart of the UK games industry
• Cara Ellison on her year of video game sex
• Juliette Garside on the rise of King and mobile games
