Popular computer games in the 1990s included Super Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong and Sim City 2000. Gaming has been critical to the spread of popularity of computers for domestic use, as well as providing a major source of income for the industry. Philip Meggs has pointed out that:

In general, games often function as society's early warning system: they cushion culture shock by allowing people to prepare for future upheavals. Playing cards printed from woodcuts in late Mediaeval Europe enabled illiterate citizens to learn counting, symbol-recognition, and cognitive skills on the eve of the typographic revolution. In the same sense, the videogame phenomenon acclimated citizens to the impending computer revolution.

(Meggs, Philip, "Will videogames devour the world . . . ?", Print, Vol XLVI:VI, in Cotton, Bob, and Oliver, Richard, The Cyberspace Lexicon, Phaidon Press, London, 1994, p205)