ABSTRACT
The perception of video games has evolved in the last decades, in sync with changing audiences, content, use, and market structures. The potential impact of video games on the lives of their users are addressed in different contexts, there's a sheer endless stream of books, videos, music titles, TV series, and movies depicting games in one way or other, either as topic or as pop cultural reference. It would be easy to pass the buck to the media and blame them for not reporting on research in an appropriate way. Actually, it would be too easy, the truth is that some video game researchers have also contributed to a black-and-white discussion, pushing sensationalist findings as they sell better. However, the various articles do not paint video gaming solely in black and white and also not in a uniform gray. In short, the societal debate about video games is multi-faceted, even confusingly rich by covering many aspects from different viewpoints.
