Seven years ago I was ready to tell the gaming industry to go stuff itself. It was after yet another year of content and marketing that were ever-more violent and sexualised and utterly lacking in self-awareness. And then a feminine hygiene ad changed my mind. It wasn't an ordinary tampon commercial, with women leaping around in white trousers; no, this TV ad started with the word "Play" and ended with "Game Over". In between there were 30 seconds of incongruous computer game-influenced CGI. Oh my, I thought. These games - they're going to be big.
And so I set about waiting for the medium to come to a place where adults outside the industry would look upon games as creatively inspiring, culturally challenging and an asset in the quiver of innovation. That has finally arrived.
Since 2001, games have undergone a transformation. There's a flurry of excitement about them from the outside: the internet and traditional media industries, boosted by the maturation of the web, are watching these enfants terribles closely for best-practice clues.
Next week, the annual South By Southwest festival kicks off in Austin, Texas, and while this event started out as a music showcase, the internet crew stepped in last year and created a hugely influential interactive sister event.
The sessions last year focused primarily on virtual worlds, but this year's programme is aimed at internet professionals who want to learn how to integrate gaming with their products and how to get into the games industry themselves. At the same time, the rise and rise of independent gaming platforms harks back to the business models that the film and television industries experienced in their adolescences.
At last week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the three platform holders all admitted that they needed the independent games sector. Their consoles couldn't be complete without indie distribution channels providing places for home-brew developers. Meanwhile, PlayStation gamers are panting for Little Big Planet - the MySpace for game developer wanabees due out later this year.
Further down the line, many of the highlights on the arts and media events calendar for 2008 are celebrating games, looking at how to integrate social media and gaming, celebrating their mechanics, stories and art and coming to grips with play.
The games industry has come a long way since that tampon ad, when the most exciting thing on the market was the four-player Multitap. Sure, there may still be industry bashes in strip clubs. But at least now there are other places to go to get a gaming fix.
