Students may have had a similar experience: racing home after a long day of school to finish homework and play video games with friends. They fought over the controller in anticipation of powering up the PlayStation or Xbox. They stayed up late on weekends to play games, ranging from Fortnite to Minecraft. These games were just a few of the most popular and favored among students as they grew up.
Video games were a significant shared childhood experience that not only helped build new friendships but also strengthened existing ones. They were an integral part of students’ childhoods, as video games helped improve teamwork, strategic thinking and problem-solving skills over time.
Deciding what your favorite video game growing up was varies due to the wide variety of genres and consoles that specific games entailed. These include action, adventure, role-playing, strategy, sports, horror, fighting and casual as characterizations for video games, and well-known consoles include Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, Nintendo Switch, PC, and IOS devices such as phones or tablets.
One of the more popular consoles in the history of video games is the Xbox 360, which ranks ninth all-time in total sales with 85.8 million units sold. In terms of Xbox games, senior Yesh Tafa was an avid user of the console growing up, and he said, “If I had to choose my favorite game on the Xbox 360, I would say that Grand Theft Auto V was by far the best.”
Tafa backed up his reasoning for this choice as he said, “I just really enjoyed the action aspect of the game as it always seemed like there was something to do, and I was able to play online with most of my friends.”
Another one of the most popular consoles growing up was the PlayStation 4, which ranks fifth all-time in total sales with over 117 million units sold. As it pertains to PlayStation games, junior Jeremiah Ofori played many of the most popular games, and he said, “After careful deliberation, I think that my favorite game to play was Fortnite because of the fact that it was multiplayer and the fact that it surged in popularity as soon as I started to get into video games.”
IOS games were also popular as students were growing up because students may not have hadconsoles like the PlayStation or the Xbox, so they resorted to playing what was available on the App Store. Senior Krish Balkee never owned a console, so he enjoyed playing the popular games that came out on the iPad during his childhood. “I would say that my favorite game growing up was Clash Royale because I didn’t really have too many other options, and it looked fun when I saw an advertisement for it on a YouTube video I was watching. After I started playing, I fell in love with the action and strategy that went into the game.”
These games that were chosen by students as their favorite are still relevant today, as social media and online presence allow video game companies to push their games out to newer audiences as a part of the next generation. Graphics and functionality are also set to improve as time goes on, and the popular video games of the future will no doubt leave a lasting impact on the childhoods of the next generation of students.
