Video Games: Thank You, Fantasy.

$17 billion.

In 2011, US consumers spent $17 billion on video games. That is $54 for every man, woman, and child in the country. And that’s actually down from the $18.6 billion spent in 2010, which is pretty close to the annual budget of NASA.

That figure spans all platforms (PC, console, handheld, mobile devices) and genres (action, strategy, sports, RPG). If you look at the top five titles of the year, you can see the wide variety of games available: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Just Dance 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Battlefield 3, and Madden NFL 12.

Fantasy as a genre has had a tremendous impact on this industry. From the early days of Wizardry (back in the Apple II days of 1983) up through the upcoming release of Guild Wars 2 at the end of August, fantasy has been one of the most common themes used for the setting of popular video games. Need proof? Here are just a few:

The Diablo franchise. Final Fantasy. Everquest (1 and 2). World of Warcraft. Elder Scrolls. Guild Wars. D&D Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Ultima Online. Legend of Zelda. Vanguard. Dragon Age. Asheron’s Call. Aion. Free Realms.

Many of the above games are considered MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) in which you play with hundreds or thousands of other players at a time. MMORPGs, perhaps more than any other game type, have used the fantasy genre to great success. One does not have to look too far to see why this might be.

The basic premise of almost all RPG games is simple: you start with a character who is weak, underpowered, and perhaps downtrodden, then present them with a series of challenge. Throughout their journey, they grow in power and stature, make friends and enemies, overcoming greater and greater obstacles until they are ready to face the great threat to the world/order/family/[insert reason to fight here].

Sounds like the plot of most fantasy novels, doesn’t it? Not that there is anything wrong with it. There is a reason this type of story sells.

Yet is it a too-simple approach to explain the popularity of fantasy-themed video games? Probably.

Like fantasy books, video games offer an individual the chance to escape into a different world where they get to make choices. They get to play the part of the protagonist instead of reading about it. Many games out there have servers set up for players who wish to role-play. If you wish to help craft a story with the community and not simply kill/fetch things, those are the places for you.

Now, the majority of gamers do not role-play. They are there to hack and slash, killing the next random spider/worg/bunny rabbit that addles along while searching for the magical essence/sprig/bucket of hope/bitterroot/water. But you get to use magic and oversized swords to do it, and that’s what counts, right?

Some games offer fans of a particular book or series to step into a world about which they have only read. Lord of the Rings Online came out in 2007 and offered fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic tale to create a hobbit, elf, dwarf, or man and explore Middle-earth on their own, following an epic storyline of your own that ran in parallel with Frodo, Sam, and the fellowship’s path to Mordor. Three expansions later, through Moria and Isengard, your character can now reach Rohan (as of September 5th).

I stopped playing the game a while back, but I will happily admit that I got a tremendous amount of pleasure running around the Shire with my hobbit burglar, investigating Bag End, seeing the rainbows in the sky after a shower, and avoiding nosey hobbits while carrying the mail from Bywater to Tuckborough. Moria was pretty neat, too. And big. Very, very big.

Most games, though, do not have such a vast trove of lore to draw upon when crafting their world. Often, the setting’s history and culture is created alongside the game. This can result in players feeling a bit disconnected from the story (if there is one) as they rush from quest to quest, never reading the text so lovingly crafted by some writer somewhere. Each to their own, though, right?

No matter what, fantasy games offer players the same thing that fantasy novels offer readers: a bit of escapism from the trials and tribulations of the real world. And who doesn’t need that sometimes?

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