Ah, the 00s. The golden age of gaming. Don’t listen to the old fellas who glorify the 90s. Or the 80s. Or any other decade. It’s the 00s where the magic happened. The formative years for the millenial generation. The post-gen-x years. The decade where gaming came into its own full swing, fully established smack dab in the middle of popular culture, no longer restricted to the nerdy, smelly, awkward fringes of society. Yes, it’s true, this was the continuation of a process that began in the late 90s and was mostly due to the marketing of Sony’s Playstation towards a broader, less niche-y audience. But it was the 00s where the Wii happened, where social gaming became a thing, where iOS pushed those little $1 games onto everyone’s smartphone.
Beyond that, it’s the decade where Call of Duty and its competitors drove “hardcore” gaming into the market of super-success that was only reserved to movies before. The face of gaming changed dramatically over the past decade. And since I have never touched World of Warcraft, I will not even talk about that game here.