What is 10 Years Called? A Decade of Gaming Greatness

Let‘s kick things off with a clear answer – a period of 10 years is called a decade. I know, kind of obvious, but hey…gotta start somewhere!

Now get comfy friends, because we‘re going on a wild ride through gaming history, keeping an eye on how we measure and label significant eras along the way. Time may feel meaningless when you‘re grinding hours into your favorite RPG. But trust me, the march of time has marked some major milestones in this industry.

So whether you‘re a retro fan or bleeding edge gamer, read on for a complete guide to terminology used to describe spans of time – especially decades!

Decades – 10 Monumental Years

Let‘s start with the core time unit – decades representing 10 straight years.

What exactly has happened over some of the most famous decades in gaming? Well…

• The 1980s – The decade that started it ALL! Space Invaders, Pac Man, Tetris, Super Mario Bros – icons that still endure were born.
• The 1990s – Game consoles warred while PC gamers flourished. Graphics took huge leaps as the internet arrived on scene.
• The 2000s – Online multiplayer changed everything. The Xbox joined the console fray as mobile gaming quietly grew.
• The 2010s – VR and AR start maturing. Indie games thrive while AAA studios chase photorealism and complex open worlds. Cloud and mobile gaming explode.

And this next decade we‘re embarking on right now? I foresee mass adoption of game streaming and some killer apps for AR/VR as key trends!

But those are just highlights – let‘s get more numerical…

Fun Fact: Total video game industry revenue has grown over 8X from $19.7 billion in the 1980s to $163.7 billion estimated for 2023!

See why decades are such a popular way to track major gaming eras? These 10-year chunks really capture critical evolution points!

Gaming Across the Centuries

Now let‘s level up to talking centuries – 100 year periods. Yes, video games have only existed for a few decades so far…but I bet we‘ll still be gaming by the year 2200!

So a quick look at centuries in the context of video game history:

• 20th Century – pinball machines and university research labs plant early seeds
• 21st Century – the full-blown video game INDUSTRY is born and achieves massive global growth
• 22nd Century and Beyond – hmmm…fully immersive VR, neural interface gaming? the possibilities are endless!

Alright, thinking in such broad centuries is cool for perspective – but let‘s jump back down into some more practical time units for understanding gaming history…

Quarter, Half, and Whole Centuries

A century denotes 100 years as we just covered – but we can also break it into quarters and halves, with their own special names:

• Quarter century – a 25 year span
• Half century – a 50 year period
• Century – the full 100 year monster

For example, 2023 will mark a quarter century since the original Sony PlayStation (PS1) launched in 1994! Man, now I suddenly feel old even though I‘ve only been gaming for…does some quick math…just over two decades myself!

Let‘s visualize how these different century breakdowns fit together:

Let‘s keep exploring more gaming-relevant time spans…and how we label the exciting anniversaries they represent!

Vicennials, Quindecennials, and Other ~als

The English language loves adding suffixes like "ennial" to numbers to denote a period of years. For example:

• Vicennial – 20 years
• Quindecennial – 15 years

So what are some coming gaming vicennials and quindecennials?

• Vicennial – 20th anniversary of World of Warcraft‘s launch (2004) arrives next year!
• Quindecennial – The 15th birthday of Geometry Wars just passed this year unforunately without much fanfare. But I still remember pounding hours into that neon particle frenzy on Xbox 360!

Let‘s uncover a few more ~ennials relevant to gaming:

• Tricennial – 30 years
• Quinquagenarian – someone between 50-59 years old (not generally used to describe eras)
• Centennial – 100 years
• Millennial – 1,000 years (pretty useless for gaming but fun to say!)

Whew, quite a lineup! But we‘re not done yet…the parallels between timespans and anniversaries continue with even more obscure terms. Gotta catch ‘em all!

Gaming Jubilees – Celebrate in Style!

When discussing major wedding anniversaries, you‘ve probably heard "silver jubilee" and "golden jubilee" used to mark 25th and 50th years of marital bliss respectively. Well guess what? We co-opted those terms to describe gaming anniversary celebrations too!

• Silver jubilee – a 25th gaming anniversary
• Golden jubilee – used for epic 50th birthdays!
• Diamond jubilee – 60 sparkling years

For example, 2023 marks a diamond jubilee for PAC-MAN – can‘t wait for some special 60th anniversary editions!

I‘d also better start budgeting to attend the golden 50th jubilee for Super Mario Bros in 2030. Where‘s a starman when you need some handy invincibility???

Time Keeps on Slipping (Through the Hourglass…)

As this guide starts approaching a full quarter century wordcount, I think we‘ve covered the key time period terminology used to discuss decades of gaming history and culture.

We zoomed through various decades and centuries, unlocked "ennial" suffix expertise, and saw how anniversary lingo like vicennials, silver jubilees and more also work for major gaming milestones.

So from hours to centuries and beyond – I hope all us gamers continue quantifying and celebrating our favorite pastime as the decades tick by! Because thousands of years from now, no matter how advanced games have become, we‘ll still look back fondly on these early days that started it all.

Game on friends! See you in another 10 years for my decade in review.