Also keep in mind that the world population was also minus 2 billion people only a few decades ago, and while I’m not sure if you can make any sociological connection to that and video games becoming mainstream, that’s still a lot more people who can buy them.

This whole convo reminds me of this.
yewtu.be/watch?v=zlJrEwEMIpM

Anyway, it's a big claim to have that video games were meant for a niche audience in the 80s, I believe that Toga insinuated that video games were a 80s/90s thing which is not true.

Video games existed way back before any of you existed, the ever first video game was released in 1958, yes, the 50th year of the 20th century. And yes, it wasn't as big. Since they were a novelty at the time. Besides, they were considered toys, for children to crunch the edge of the box until it explodes, that was until Atari came in where video games became it's own medium, like how Tanks became a walking killdozer.
But Atari ruined the market since they dumped games after games without leaving them to breath, it caused a huge burnout and the worth became zinch until Nintendo came along and revitalized video games as a whole.
And yes, Nintendo did made video games globally known, because Nintendo (and Atari sometimes) were aiming a whole audience, not just your kind, the first party Nintendo games (DK, SMB, Duck Hunt, etc) were designed for a casual experience in mind, unlike third-party games like Mega Man, which also helped Nintendo's conquest of relevancy. Then in the 90s when Sega came along to attract more teenage audience with Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage and Shinobi and the rest is history.
My point is, Gaming was already a cultural phenomenon, if it wasn't well known then we wouldn't had controversies which fuel the console wars (like MK controversy by Nintendo to smite Sega and invented the ESRB), Madden games and other miscellaneous. It had history.
Sure there were niche side of things, most notably on PC, which the most well known game on PC where DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D at the time. Ironically, in Europe and Russia, PC gaming were huge back in the day while consoles were not, unlike most nations/continents.

We were talking about the 80s, where human population was 4,444,007,706.

tbh we all sound like our grandparents now who used to complain about how everything was much better in their day before everyone watched tv constantly

Ooooh, so precise, so exact.

The radio will be our downfall.
Television will be our downfall.
Video games will be our downfall.
The internet will be our downfall.


Same shit, different gen, rinse repeat.

Before that a few people mentioned the 90’s/00’s.


Pretty much. I know I’m a grumpy older man and I’m getting to that midlife crisis age where you bitch about everything constantly, but at least I am aware enough to know when I’m making the same mistakes my ancestors did.

Fearmongeling by the afraid extreme conservatives.

Again, you're really going to have to define "huge" and "big".

As orphan_crippler said, your average joe in the 80's would've struggled to name a video game other than Mario, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, or Pong.

And more importantly, they were absolutely peanuts compared to the movie industry and the television industry at the time.

Apple allows emulators now on their appstore.
Now Nintendo can cry more.