Okay so by mainstream he means culturally acceptable as well, rather than merely being successful in which case, he's got me. But my point regarding accessibility still stands and will stand until generations catch up. I mentioned in another thread that I'd been working with a young girl recently who was well acquainted with Sim City, Pharaoh and Age of Empires. That's not something I witnessed a lot of when I was her age; girl friends who enjoyed strategy games.

I really loved this bit in Jim's article which ties in with what I said above about games having to apparently be 'about something':

"But we’re not purely about language. There are other elements of culture that are being left out that don’t tell stories, which are even non-linguistic, and which are also included within the remits of gaming: music, architecture, sculpture, physical or sporting achievement, feats of logical intellect, spatial exploration, or the pure experience of novelty. All these things connect with stuff that is utterly mainstream."

As I said originally though, who gives a fuck if games never become 'mainstream' (they will, I'm sure). Some of the experiences I've had with games are entirely unique to the medium and if I have to choke back my enthusiasm around non-gamers for fear of being sneered at, so be it. It's their loss and I've got this far without anybody else's approval. I'm sure in time we'll be sat chatting with the young'uns about gaming as they take its cultural legitimacy for granted but until then we've got to hold tight and soak it all up.