Opinion - Hope for Gaming

On June 18, 2026, former President Barack Obama gathered with former Presidents, First Ladies, celebrities, attendees, and other dignitaries to open the newest Presidential library, which focuses on his 8 years and on the community and Chicago. As a sucker for history, I loved watching clips from the opening ceremony and photos of four Presidents standing together. I love that stuff. It was even crazier for me, as these were four men who have dominated American history during my lifetime - Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden. President Trump wasn’t invited due to his rough relationship with his predecessors. As I think about that ceremony and my history nerd brain kicks in, I think about how it relates to my favorite medium in life - video games.

Right now, video games, specifically mainstream console gaming, are in a rough place. As I write this, news has come out that has Microsoft raising the price of Xbox consoles once again. So, social media has become filled with anger, resentment, questions, sadness, and analysis that leans toward doom, that the industry is going to crash or get worse. Now, don’t get me wrong, I did my posts, and I’m not too happy about it, but I decided to lean on what has been one of my personal ideological calling cards for a long time, leaning on hope and a glass half-full perspective. This perspective is helping me get by what is a very rough time in American history, as the country is more divided, economically damaged, and dealing with failed leadership across multiple levels, all as we get set to celebrate the 250th anniversary. I think gaming, in many ways, is in a similar spot to America. However, I think that when you look back at history, you need to know that nothing is permanent and that we will have better days again, even if it feels like that’s never going to happen.

Now, let’s get one thing clear: gaming’s problems don’t amount to a hill of Beans (as Rick would say in Casablanca) compared to the world problems and personal issues people are dealing with. But, since this is a very important medium and industry to people like me, who use it to live, explore, connect, and experience - I figure it’s important to give a pick me up to my fellow gamers, using my history nerd side, potentially making you feel some hope for where things will go beyond just video games.

We’ve Been Here Before

America has had some rough times before. Not sure how many are aware of it, but there’s a political theory that goes something like this: every 70 to 80 years, we repeat everything again. The belief is that a generation grows up struggling, perseveres, passes on what they did wrong as a lesson to their offspring, who usher in a golden era, and then the people who taught us what to do start to die off, leading to new generations that make the same mistakes. This theory essentially goes from a crash to war to teaching to learning to helping make the world a better place, then back to a crash, and so on. I’m not sure how finely tuned the theory is, but America has followed a similar path.

Let’s look at the last hundred years. America was in the middle of the roaring 20s, a decade of decadence, middle-class growth, technological advancements for the time, lots of partying, and a growing wealth disparity. Everyone decided it was a good idea to invest their savings in the stock market, and it all came crashing down when the Great Depression hit. For the next two decades, America found itself slowly getting out of the depression, only to come face-to-face with fascism in Europe. When we prevailed in the war, we found ourselves in a new age as two superpowers battled. We had a golden period in the 1950s with the greatest middle-class boom in recorded world history and the birth of modern America, warts and all. However, as the youth felt they had it all when John F. Kennedy was elected, black Americans began to ask for rights.

The golden period would be shattered as an assassin cut down Camelot’s prince. What followed was two decades of a divided country, the fight for equal rights by black Americans and women, which eventually led to the sunny optimism of 1980s Reagan America. The Soviet Union collapsed, ushering in a new golden age for America in the 1990s, when our biggest problem was the headlines about an unfaithful President. Then, once again, the calm was shattered as two planes hit the World Trade Center towers, and we entered a controversial war and the start of more division. A massive economic crash came, and people lost their homes. Eventually, America elected its first African American President, Barack Obama, whose era was similar to JFK's in its focus on optimism and hope. While there was still some division under Obama, it got much worse since he left office. The Trump-Biden eras will total 12 years of some of the deepest divisions this country has experienced in decades, with controversies that call into question America’s leadership and leave many young people feeling lost.

I say all this to point to the cycle that America, the world’s most influential country, has been through, with a rollercoaster of wins and failures. The video game industry is similar when you really stop and look at it.

The industry’s first major problem came with the 1983 crash, which primarily impacted North America but had ripples throughout the world. For a long time, many declared video games a fad, and the crash proved it. Then came along Nintendo and the 8-bit era, which reinvented how people saw consoles and brought in new customers, leading the boom of the 90s, which saw a new player in Sony and led to video games expanding to the mainstream, no longer seen as a kids’ and nerds’ hobby. However, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, as the industry had to face questions about violence in games as governments became involved. That was followed by rising development costs, especially as we entered the HD era, which led to studio closures and job losses despite consoles selling well. Then, we had the 2010s, which saw the rise of mobile and mainstream PC gaming, and we saw one of the console pillars begin to struggle - Xbox. The Xbox 360 was able to shake off the red ring of death situation, but lost brand faith thanks to a bad debut for the Xbox One. However, while it didn’t make a comeback as great as PS3, we do forget that Xbox One did come back a little from its brand damage and still sold up to 58 million units, not bad for a console with a horrible output of exclusives.

Let’s take a look at PlayStation’s history, which started with a meteoric rise. The PlayStation seemed unstoppable after the juggernaut that was PlayStation 2. However, overconfidence and greed poisoned the brand, and we got the horrible launch of the PS3. A console that adjusted for inflation was essentially the same price as the disc Xbox Series X is now. Was this the end of PlayStation? Had the era of Xbox begun? Well, Sony slowly but surely began to make moves, even willing to sacrifice money to help the brand come back. By the time the console stopped selling, the PS3 had completed a comeback, slightly outselling the Xbox 360. It followed that up with the PS4, which was a return to form for the brand as they sold over 100 million consoles yet again.

Nintendo is definitely no stranger to both good and bad years. Following the Super Nintendo, they were cocky and confident, launched the N64 without a disc drive, and thought third-party developers would put up with it. Instead, their biggest partners left to make games on PS1, and N64 struggled outside of America, with Sega’s lowly Saturn outselling it in Japan! The GameCube was no better, selling close to 22 million units, and the whispers had begun. Nintendo was too kiddy; it should go third-party. Well, Nintendo answered back with the Wii and DS era, selling a combined 255+ million units of hardware and selling tons of software. It wasn’t to last, however, as the Wii U felt like the potential death knell to Nintendo as a hardware maker. The Switch changed all that, now approaching the PS2's numbers in units sold, and the Switch 2, despite some online gripes, is on its way to success.

There are other problems in the industry overall that aren’t just about the console makers, either. As I mentioned, the government’s involvement scared the industry as they questioned the rise in violent games. The industry had to navigate uncertainty, launching and managing itself amid recessions, financial collapses, war, and a pandemic. The HD era was a boon for Western developers, but it led to a tough time for Japanese developers and smaller studios. That’s all to say, that studio closures, while much more common at the moment, have been around before, even in good times.

Look to the Heroes

One thing that has annoyed me in the current era is the constant posts on social media. You know how it goes, you may have reposted it or said it yourself: “I’m tired of living in unprecedented times”. I got a little secret for you - you are ALWAYS living in unprecedented times. Yes, some times are worse than others, but history is constantly happening, and time waits for no one. I think many people read and know history, but forget that people lived through those times. So remember, while you’re mad at the current policies, and you’re seeing people taken from the streets, or upset with this AI boom, there was someone who lived through World War II, and survived the death camps. It’s not to say you should never feel like things are tough; it’s always okay to have emotions. It’s just that when you take a step back, remember someone else has been there and will be there in the future with similar or even worse circumstances, and when those bad moments are gone, you will embrace and remember the good times that much more.

As Fred Rogers famously said, look to the helpers. During World War II, it was those men that came from farms that came to hit the beaches in Normandy and fought back against facism, it was Martin Luther King and the civil rights moment that had members literally die to get the right to vote, something that frustaringly many young people take for granted or play games with these days, it was the neighbor that saw their neighbor struggling and offered food or a little bit of money to get by, it was the stranger that wanted to make sure they understood someone even if they were different than they were in culture and belifes. The heroes and good times are around us if you know where to look.

So, as we sit here with rising prices and an increasingly expensive hobby, I’m going to be blunt with you: it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The dark clouds and rain have just begun. So during this time, who are the heroes, and how do you get past such a bad moment for a hobby/medium we love? Well, first of all, the demographic I’m most worried about is kids and new gamers. While it’s easy for kids to access games, not everyone is lucky. Despite gaming being much more mainstream, you still have non-gaming parents who won't like these prices and will only push their kids to play games on their iPads rather than consoles. As badly as I want to push back on that, we know financial situations and other factors mean the chances of changing that are low. So, why not look for games on iPads and mobile devices that come close to the console experience? We make fun of forever games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox - but that’s a lifeline right now to many kids. If we can share some of our library, now is the time to become open to it. If you have a niece or nephew who likes a game or system you have, find time to let them play it, even if it's limited; it goes a long way to their long-term gaming journey.

Another help will be video game subscription services. I know, I know, many people roll their eyes regarding Game Pass, but as I’ve said before, that service is a huge lifesaver for many people who don’t have the funds to buy every major game. With the increasing cost, I have no issue with someone using Game Pass or PlayStation Plus, and you know why? - because that’s me! I would not be able to create year-end lists without Game Pass. I understand the debate around the service, but for me personally, it’s currently an important part of my gaming life for financial reasons.

Lastly, with the huge variety of games, viewpoints, and ecosystems, stop pocket-watching and judging others. I have zero interest in the Steam Machine after seeing the price, but I’m not going to yuck someone’s yum because they’re interested in it. I understand that GTA VI isn’t going to be for everyone, but don’t look down on people who are excited about it. This is all not to say you can’t have your opinions, you should, just go about it a little more delicately, as many people are now having to become pickier, and with how f***** up the world has become, we should encourage people to find their peace.

Hope

Now, I don’t want to call anyone out because I have respect for legit gaming journalists out there, but I do notice many of them have a half-empty glass perspective on the future of the industry. Mat Piscatela, whom I again respect, tends to talk obsessively about forever games and gaming becoming more affluent. I get where he and others are coming from, and I do think in the very short term that may indeed happen. However, I think that, like America’s history and the industry's rough moments, there is hope, and we will see a healthy industry again. It’s hard to see, but it’s because we’re focused on just living and surviving it now. We want the data that points to it, but sometimes data won’t show it to you because it’s an invisible thing called hope.

Say whatever you want about Geoff Keighley and his Game Awards, but that show gets massive audiences, and the very fact that it’s still growing is a testament to video games. Many of those kids currently growing up on mobile games, I believe, will eventually want to go a little bigger and get a console or a PC. I do think affordable consoles will be a thing again in the future. Our pessimistic brains want to challenge that because we get into discussions about greed and companies making new prices the norm, but I do believe that demand and other factors will lead to console affordability making a comeback, even if it comes in a new way, similar to cell phones. The rain is out, but that rain can only go for so long before the sun comes out again.

All this is to say that throughout life, national history, and family history, there are really bad moments, and it feels like everything is just going to go wrong. Again, it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but it will get better. We are going to have to become a better community for the next several years and find ways to keep gaming going, but that next golden age of gaming, it’s coming and the first steps to it have just begun.

With America nearing its 250th anniversary, it’s a country with a history of taking two steps forward, then five steps back, and then repeating the cycle. However, it is making progress, and if you ask certain communities, groups, and causes from a hundred years ago and show them today, they’ll see that progress. Video games are a young industry, and it’s going through one of its worst times. But much like I believe America will, it will see a new golden age, and remember when it gets here to enjoy it.

“Hope - Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us...A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.” - Barack Obama

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