United States

United States
The United States' geographical location, including Alaska and Hawaii.
"The Star-Spangled Banner", the National Flag of the United States of America
Basic Information
Full Name	United States of America
Type	Nation
Bibliographical Information
Capital	Washington, D.C.
FIFA Code	USA
IOC Code	USA
Video gaming in United States in video gaming

The United States (officially the United States of America, often abbreviated as US or USA, or simply referred to as America) is a country in North America that has had one of the largest impacts on gaming and video gaming history. Its capital is Washington, D.C. and the country is bordered by Canada and Mexico. It is a federal republic composed of fifty states, one federal district, and several unincorporated territories, such as American Samoa, Guam and Puerto Rico.

The United States uses the ESRB for video game ratings. Unlike other institutions, such as PEGI and the BBFC, the ESRB is a voluntary rating system with no legal power; instead, retailers self-regulate the sale of video games based on the ESRB's assigned rating. Many retailers refuse to sell video games that are assigned the Adults Only rating by the ESRB, and this, in turn, has influenced video game development.

The country competes with China for being the largest gaming market by revenue, a first place it had held since the beginnings of gaming and began to lose in 2010s. 13 of top 50 video game companies are based in the United States, eight of them in California. American players are traditionally more console oriented than European ones. They are also quite self centered and play mostly home production, an exception are some Japanese games which became popular after the video game crash of 1983.

The United States are highly influental in gaming. It is the place of origin for the first arcade machines, home consoles, globally used computer operating systems, digital distribution platforms, smartphones and many video game genres.

US-based publishers/developers/studios

• 14 Degrees East (Star Trek franchise)
• Activision (Call of Duty & Star Trek franchises)
• Activision Blizzard
• Bethesda Softworks (DOOM series, The Elder Scrolls series, Fallout series, Star Trek franchise)
• Blizzard Entertainment (Diablo series, Overwatch series, StarCraft series, Warcraft franchise)
• Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires series)
• Epic Games (Unreal franchise)
• Interplay Entertainment (Descent series, Fallout series, Freespace series & Star Trek franchise)
• id Software (DOOM series)
• Ion Storm (Deus Ex series)
• Electronic Arts (Battlefield series, Command & Conquer franchise, Dead Space series, Dragon Age series, SimCity series, The Sims series
• NovaLogic (F-16 Multirole Fighter, F-22 Raptor, MiG-29 Fulcrum)
• Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords)
• Origin Systems (Ultima & Wing Commander series)
• Valve Software (Steam, Half-Life series, Portal series, Team Fortress series, Counter-Strike series, Dota 2)
• Westwood Studios (Command & Conquer franchise)

External Links

• United States on Wikipedia
• Entertainment Software Association official website
• MadeInUSAReview curator on Steam
• Made_In_USA_Review curator on Steam