Finally, a topic I can actually answer! First things first, I'm not quite sure what "an average working American" would think or know, or even who that might refer to. In lieu of responding to that, then, I'll instead briefly summarize some popular press articles on the subject, presuming that those might stand in for contemporary views on digital games. In particular, I'll look at Time magazine's Jan 1982 cover story on video games and compare it to their 1983 "machine" of the year, the computer.
To give a little bit of background, it's important to remember that video gaming's economic success during the late 70s was both explosive and likely unexpected. While early releases like Pong and consoles like the Magnavox did garner consumer interest, Taito's 1978 title Space Invaders was a smash hit, revitalizing the midway entertainment business and kicking off the "golden age of arcade games." Space Invaders spawned a number of sci-fi themed relatives - such as Atari's own Asteroids - and game cabinets started popping up in shopping malls to pizza parlors. The revenue from these games grew rapidly, rising from $300 million in 1978 to almost $3 billion in 1980.
Home programmable video game consoles - like Atari's VCS or Mattel's Intellevision - were buoyed by the success of arcade games. In particular, Atari's console conversion of Space Invaders drove sales of the VCS, boosting their revenues from around $100 million in 1979 to almost $900 million in 1980. The industry's growth drew a lot of public attention, as mainstream marketing campaigns were launched, arcade cabinets proliferated in public spaces, and pundits tried to figure out whether video games were another fad.
In January of 1982, Time magazine’s cover story claimed that “video games are blitzing the world.” The titular article treats video games with a blend of incredulity and alarm, describing the staggering growth and strangely addictive properties of video games. “The video game craze, more frenzied even than the universal lust for designer jeans or Kalashnikov rifles,” has a “poor reputation across the world,” including “homosexual cruising,” “teenage hooliganism,” and the possibility of “lur[ing] young men into beer houses, where they see burlesque dancers.” Though the article dismisses some these fears as “absurdly exaggerated,” it nevertheless produces a narrative of electronic gadgetry consumed shame-facedly in the dark corners of noisy arcades and pizza parlors. It is described as a domain of “ear-weary males, their backs welted with wifely sarcasm,” an embarrassing hobby that women “view as black holes, soaking up male attention.” Each player interviewed feels the need to either defend their spending habits - “It’s my money; I’ve earned it..there aren’t many fun things in life” - to castigate themselves for their hobby - “it’s like a drug...I’ve tried to wean myself - I wish I had back all the money I’ve spent” - or just to wish for anonymity - “I’d rather you not use my real name...this is my secret place.”
But despite these somewhat worrying evocations of everyday folk being sucked in by simultaneously alluring and bizarre games, the article closes by citing the seemingly unending juggernaut of financial growth for digital game designers. “Mere earthlings,” concludes Time, “must cope as best they can.”
In Time's "machine of the year" announcement, the tone is fairly different. Unlike the nearly mocking tone describing video games, the computer is figured as a serious transformational machine, poised to radically change culture writ large. The computer is “a process, and a widespread recognition by a whole society that this process will change the course of all other processes;” denying this fact is akin to “conclud[ing] that the earth is flat, and the sun circles it every 24 hours.” It will liberate workers from the drudgery of labor at the workplace, enabling families to live in an “electronic cottage, an utopian abode where all members of the family work, learn, and enjoy their leisure in front of the electronic hearth, the computer.” Despite these exciting visions of the future, however, games only have a small place in them:
This most visible aspect of the computer revolution, the video game, is its least significant. But even if the buzz and clang of the arcades is largely a teen-age fad, doomed to go the way of Rubik's Cube and the Hula Hoop, it is nonetheless a remarkable phenomenon. About 20 corporations are selling some 250 different game cassettes for roughly $2 billion this year. According to some estimates, more than half of all the personal computers bought for home use are devoted mainly to games. Computer enthusiasts argue that these games have educational value, by teaching logic, or vocabulary, or something. Some are even used for medical therapy. Probably the most important effect of these games, however, is that they have brought a form of the computer into millions of homes and convinced millions of people that it is both pleasant and easy to operate, what computer buffs call "user friendly." Games, says Philip D. Estridge, head of IBM's personal computer operations, "aid in the discovery process."
By this rhetoric, games themselves have no redeeming value - instead, they function as the electronic “gateway drug,” making developing core computational competencies fun. This conceit becomes a critical way that games advocates make the case for the role of games in a rapidly digitizing workforce.
No less important than this kind of drill, which some critics compare with the old-fashioned flash cards, is the use of computers to teach children about computers. They like to learn programming, and they are good at it, often better than their teachers, even in the early grades. They treat it as play, a secret skill, unknown among many of their parents. They delight in cracking corporate security and filching financial secrets, inventing new games and playing them on military networks, inserting obscene jokes into other people's programs. In soberer versions that sort of skill will become a necessity in thousands of jobs opening up in the future. Beginning in 1986, Carnegie-Mellon University expects to require all of its students to have their own personal computers. "People are willing to spend a large amount of money to educate their children," says Author Fishman. "So they're all buying computers for Johnny to get a head start (though I have not heard anyone say, `I am buying a computer for Susie')."
In short, video gaming's sudden economic success took many by surprise, and video games were seen as somewhat inscrutable and even a little embarrassing to play. However, they were implicated as part of the "computer revolution," and thus had the potential to draw players into developing their technological skills, preparing them for an increasingly computerized world.