Just had the beginnings of an idea and haven't fully fleshed it out yet. Just wanted to put it out there to get some input from some of you. I don't think I've seen this idea discussed anywhere else.

I think most of us can agree that gaming is a form of escapism, right? We game when we want to switch our minds off, escape from the realites of life and maybe experience things that we couldn't experience in reality.

Different parts of the brain are used when gaming than when we are doing our daily grinds. Unconcious things, subconcious things are appealed to by games because there's a lot of instinct involved and a lot of our senses are being used all at once, more so than other activities. Gaming sets our brains and senses on fire, for lack of a better phrase.

Are there influences that we are not aware of that might affect us either individually or as groups. Are there events that affect us on a subconcious level that we can't conciously acknowledge but influence us anyway?

This is an oversimplification --BUT-- the waxing and waning of JRPGs has been on my mind for a while. There are times when WRPGs are all the rage. There are times when JRPGs are. The JRPG has become all but extinct for the last few years, but now there's a huge amount suddenly being developed and released again, across all systems and generations. WRPGs are in a tiny bit of a decline.

Could this have something to do with the State of the World and the times at any given moment?

What I am trying to say is: There are times when we feel trapped in life, where we have no control. This is when the human brain will dream about things like flying or we'll get extreme wanderlust or we'll muse to ourselves "I just want to run away!" It's then when games like Skyrim or Fallout or Mass Effect may be more popular in general. Games where you have more of a say over who you are, where you go or what you become. You seek out the control you don't have in reality in your games. As another example, when I was trapped at home after Hurricane Sandy. There was nowhere to go; no gas to be had for cars... All I did was play Need for Speed: Most Wanted at that time; an open world, free-for-all driving game, full of shortcuts, lengthy tracks that spanned varied environments and let you connect to friends you might not be able to see otherwise.

On the flip side, right now, other than being slightly inconvenienced by an injury, there's nothing "Bad" going on in my life. I find myself less interested in Open World games and/or RPGs and I just want to be told a Story. I don't believe it's because there are so many JRPGs coming soon that this has happened. Frankly, I didn't realize there were so many until I saw the Feature on IGN last night. I've been playing the HECK out of Tales of Xillia lately, for example, and prior to now, I've had next to no tolerance FOR JRPGs of this type.

Anyone see where I am going with this? Any examples to support or disprove this theory? Just curious!

Like I said before; this is not at all fleshed out. These are just ideas floating about in my head!

I know things influence us all on personal levels, but how does it work when Music and Rhythm games are all the rage, for example, and that dies out... not just for one or two people, but suddenly NO ONE wants anything to do with them? Something happens on a grand scale.

Why are suddenly Rogue Games a thing?

Guess I'm looking for the reasoning behind trends... Which are probably mostly UN-predictable

Can we trace anything back in the Game Industry to the Earthquake/Tsunami that hit Japan? It seems like Japan has been off it's game for a while now. Series, games, companies, developers all of the sudden were thrown into disarray and nothing seems to be working for them. It's like all of Japan changed suddenly. They are a shadow of their former selves. I have a friend that was in the buildings on 9/11 and his post-traumatic stress disorder changed him utterly and irrevocably. It seems like all of Japan is suffering from PTSD.

You know how people just "go through the motions" where they are a shadow of their former selves, but something is just off...

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Nintendo.

Square Enix.

CapCom. (Resident Evil)

Konami.

Bandai/Namco.

SEGA.

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They keep on doing what they've always done, but their edge they once had is gone, something is definitely lacking...

Even SONY called in Western Developers to design the PS4 this time...

-Capcom's lost some major talent and chose not to take any risks with the RE series.  

-Nintendo beats a dead horse to the ground (MK, Mario Party, NSMB). They have sheer moments of brilliance like Galaxy, but they do seem few and far between these days.  I'm not saying that a majority of what they put out isn't good, but it's not as great as the old days.  Oddly, today, I find Nintendo games to be fresh and more inventive when they are Western made like Metroid, Donkey Kong and Luigi's Mansion.  

-I'm not a Sonic fan, but it seems like Sega doesn't really know what to do with that franchise.

Foolz said:

Not everything happens for a reason.

September 11: 2001.

Call of Duty 4: 2007.

Of course, there's that whole war thing...

There was a ton of crap war shooters that came out like Stealth Force: The War on Terror where you could kill Osama.  I know because my army buddy bought like everyone of them.

I'm not really looking at cause and effect in that way. I'm saying there are more subtle influences that "suggest" to people on a grand scale. I'm saying it's more a feeling of people's helplessness in the face of terrorism and the subconcious want to be able to be an elite soldier that protects people's freedom that makes people want to play games like CoD without realizing why it's so.

The more dangerous and threatening the world feels, the more there's the need to be a super soldier.

The more safe and predictable the world becomes the more people lean towards fantasy and things that are less practical.

It's not a feeling of "Ra-Ra" Patriotism and wanting to be a 'Merican hero and emulate life... Don't know if I am expressing my idea correctly.

Without any research to back me up, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think geopolitical issues affect what games people want to play, or what games get made.  I do believe that gaming is escapism, but I'd be more inclined to link that with economical malaise then nature disasters of war or anything.  Face it, economics have a much broader impact on our world then nature disasters or war.  Those latter are local issues that, although heavily played up in the media, don't affect our daily lives.

Also, all games put the gamer in control of their world, that is not limited to specific genres.  The rise of the FPS was born out of technology.  Videogames had to evolve far enough to give people who wouldn't believe in growing double your size by grabbing a mushroom a realistic image of something they could relate to.  Namely a gun in a 3D environment, and as technology advanced even further, in a realistic setting.  I don't think any geopolitical strife had a large impact on the rise of the FPS, although it might have influenced the genre by providing easy antagonists.

As for the West vs Japan.  Japan had been dominant for 2 decades.  Nothing lasts forever.  Out with the old, in with the new.  That sort of thing.  People saw new ideas being tackled by western developers, so they sampled it and liked it.  Now that the smell of the new has rubbed off, things are settling down again, balancing things out more evenly between the west and the east.