My project for the last course centered around a brief history of video games paired with a forum for people to share their experiences. For this course I would like to delve into the history aspect of that project. The main difference is that the previous project was a superficial look into the past highlighting the major developers and games, whereas now I want to ask why arcades and home gaming has become such a huge industry. The nature of this type of research is not solely a historical one, in that it also involves some sociological research and is a modern subject that is still evolving, but the roots of this industry goes back into the 1950s.
My main problem in teaching this to students is that the subject is only really interesting to those who are a part of the video games circle, and making this history relevant to those outside the gaming community will be difficult. It is also relatively unknown to them as well. One of the things I can highlight within the project is that modern games and companies are branching out, most notably Blizzard making a Warcraft film based on its MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game.