1. Bethesda Softworks
This company has given me most of my favorite games. Fallout 3, New Vegas, Oblivion, Skyrim, and Morrowind all come out of this great bunch of people who taught me that the first person shooter doesn't just have to be a bunch of nausea-inducing run and gun. There can be action, and role-play, all in one package, and now I find myself eagerly awaiting the next installments of either Elder Scrolls or Fallout.
2. The MMO
A long, long time ago--like about five years ago long, give or take--I was a regular in World of Warcraft. Eventually I got out, mostly due to time constraints, but the impact of the MMO is still quite felt with me. One of the first genres to really circumvent many of the conventions found in gaming, the MMO really opened up not only role-playing games, but also gaming in general, making it an experience that was wholly different if you played alone from the experience you'd get when you played in a group.
3. HTML5
One thing's for sure: one of the biggest developments in gaming is one I'm very thankful for. HTML5 is destabilizing a lot of markets, but gaming may well be one of the hardest hit. That means a lot of games we might not have seen otherwise, available online and commonly ad-supported, meaning they're free to play. If you like a sweet shot of retro gaming, or merely retro-styled gaming, then be grateful for HTML5, the platform that's bringing a lot of games back for platforms on which they weren't formerly found.
So there you have it; with the turkey cooling in the refrigerator, and the family gone home to sleep, those are the three things that I'm most thankful for when it comes to video games.
