The fourth chapter in Understanding Video Games, entitled History, attempts to offer what the chapter’s title promises, but unfortunately, there are some large missteps along the way which call the entire chapter into question. The authors start out with a ‘pre-history’ of video games, beginning with board games dating back to Third Dynasty Egypt (2686-2613 B.C.E). They broadly track the emergence and evolution of board games, card games, games of chance, and sports throughout the centuries and across continents. The discussion then becomes more focused with an examination of the progression from symbol to overt simulation in board games is presented, prominently citing Monopoly and commenting on the game’s fostering of capitalist values. Here is the first misstep, as the authors do not consider the idea that Monopoly, through its system of destroying friends to get ahead is actually a critique of capitalist values, not an affirmation of them.
This pre-history then charts the rise of strategic table-top war-gaming in the wake of World War II. This rise in war-gaming’s popularity is one of the phenomena the authors attribute to the rise and influence of table-top role-playing games (RPGs) in the mid-20th century. One of the other aspects the authors credit is the supposed introduction of fantasy literature with the 1954 publication of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Once again, this is a rather large assumption to make. Even ignoring the pulp novels of the early 20th century and the massive popularity of Victorian penny dreadful novels, many of which dealt in fantasy material, Tolkien’s own The Hobbit was first published in 1937, well before the authors’ purported ’54 introduction of fantasy literature.
The authors describe how content plays out in Dungeons and Dragons (incorrectly) and argue that older RPGs were more focused on accumulating treasure and points, rather than the focus on dialogue, character and storytelling of modern RPGs (a subjective interpretation based on certain assumptions about play style). This description is in service to a charting of the rise of RPGs and attendant concerns about these games encouraging youth suicide, criminal behavior, violence and blasphemy. While the authors describe this reaction, they do not take the extra step to show how video games have faced the same criticisms, despite going on to point out how video game RPGs have adopted many of the trappings, both aesthetic and system-based, of table-top RPGs.
The authors then proceed to ask the question: ‘does history matter’? Their answer is that, while it is not necessarily required knowledge when studying the phenomena of specific game subjects (their example is how teenagers play World of Warcraft (WoW) versus how their parents played Pac-Man), history allows for an understanding of the wider significance of contemporary games, and their cultural position in contemporary society. This affirmative answer only serves to negate their negative counter-point (WoW versus Pac-Man), because that particular comparison may be irrelevant but comparing WoW to the original Neverwinter Nights (SSI, 1991) or even to Gauntlet (Midway, 1985) is of utmost importance in studying and predicting similar trends. Furthermore, the relevance of WoW versus Pac-Man is an incorrect assumption, as both games may be examined as phenomena of teenage social interaction, further negating their counter-argument.
The discussion then proceeds to a history of video games themselves. The structure for this documentation of history is odd, however, in that rather than strictly offering a chronological examination, the authors offer broad trends/important milestones, and then follow up with an examination of a particular decade based on the four genres they had established in the previous chapter, as though the genres did not influence each other whatsoever.
This history starts with three possible progenitors of video games being offered: A.S. Douglas’ tic-tac-toe program for the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) in 1951; William Higinbotham’s oscilloscope table tennis at Brookhaven National Lab in 1958; and Space War, developed at MIT in 1962 by Steven Russell, Wayne Wittanen, and J.M. Graetz. Without explicitly choosing one as the genesis of video games, the authors instead choose to focus on the evolution of Space War, and how it started receiving user modifications as it was freely disseminated throughout the 1960s. The next major note is the development of the first home video game console prototype by Ralph Baer in 1967 and his partnership with Magnavox the next year.
The first decade to get its own discussion is the 1970s, as the authors contend that this was the era which saw the rise of video games as an industry. The main reason for this contention is the rise of Nolan Bushnell and Atari, whose revenue went from $3 million in 1973 to $20 million by the end of the decade. This meteoric rise in revenues is attributable to the success of Pong (1974) after the initial failure of Computer Space (1970), and the release of the Atari Video Comupter System (VCS, or more commonly known as the Atari 2600). The progression to the VCS is mapped out, from Ralph Baer’s Magnavox Odyssey (the commercial release of Baer’s ‘60s prototype) to the Channel F (the first console to feature swappable cartridge games) in 1976 to the release of the VCS. The authors note that, aside from the transistor-based Odyssey, none of these systems would be possible without the invention of the microprocessor in 1972.
In the discussion of genres, the authors follow the evolution of action-based games in the ‘70s from the failure of Computer Space, to the success of Pong. In this period, they see the emergence of new gameplay experiences, from the active, simple combat of Tank and Gunfight to first-person driving in Night Driver, as well as the cultural impact of Space Invaders and Asteroids. They also note the first rumblings about violence in video games with 1976’s Death Race, in which the players compete to run over stick figures (not noting that the game is clearly inspired by 1974’s Death Race 2000). The authors also touch on the emergence of text adventure games as an alternative to action games, noting the influence of table-top RPGs on these games. They also discuss the emergence of MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) and the establishment of basic ideas which would evolve into contemporary Massively Multiplayer RPGs.
Once the authors start discussing the 1980s, however, problems emerge. While they do correctly cite the ‘80s Video Game Crash as an important turning point in video game history, they incorrectly cite it as taking place in 1984, instead of 1983. Further, they feel that the failure of E.T. for the Atari 2600 was a warning sign of the crash, rather than one of the major instigators, despite the game being such a failure that Atari in its original form never recovered from it. The problems continue as the discussion turns to the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s (NES) release bringing the video game industry back from the brink of extinction. They incorrectly cite the release of the NES as 1986, when it was released in the fall of 1985, a full year before their claim. Additionally, they note the relationship between the military and video games, as with the U.S. Army-commissioned version of Battlezone as a training simulator, and the rise in popularity of turn-based strategy games. They fail, however, to discuss the Cold War tensions present in those games (outside of a brief note on 1985’s Balance of Power) or the reflections of these tensions and Reagan-era America in games such as Missile Command and Contra.
The examination of the 1990s is, for the most part, better constructed and researched. The authors discuss the shift from 2D graphics to 3D polygonal representation. This shift is the result of more powerful hardware (Sony PlayStation; Nintendo 64) and the emergence and meteoric rise in popularity of first-person shooters, with the arrival of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, and Doom the following year. This era also sees a sharp increase in the concerns over violence in video games as graphics and/or controls become more realistic, with the Mortal Kombat series and Carmageddon being notable examples. Another major milestone of the 1990s is the release of Myst in 1994, as it is the first game to be taken as more than a novelty by the media. Myst was widely reviewed in literature and media sections of newspapers and magazines, legitimizing, if not the video game industry en masse, then at the very least the point-and-click adventure genre. The authors do make another misstep in discussing the emergence of massively-multiplayer RPGs, in that they cite Ultima Online’s 1997 release as the first majorly successful graphics-oriented MMO. The problem is that they are six years too late, as the original Neverwinter Nights was designed for the emerging America OnLine network in 1991, and was the first successful graphics-based MMO, running until 1997 and claiming 115,000 users at its peak.
As the chapter moves into the 2000s, history gives way to contemporary examination and future speculation. As the book was published in 2007, an examination of the decade as a whole was simply not possible. The authors do notice a trend toward conservatism in development during the decade, however, due to inflating development budgets and the subsequent high cost of failure. They also comment on how increased budgets have edged out smaller developers, a valid fact which has since been countered with the rise of the indie developer movement and the emergence of downloadable distribution. Interestingly, one of the predictions made has come to bear in a way not even the authors could have foreseen. While they forecast an increase in the popularity of mobile gaming, the iPhone and iPad gaming scenes have become so monolithic that traditional portable game systems (Nintendo’s 3DS; Sony’s PSVita) have been severely impacted. Their other predictions are similarly accurate: that narrative will always have a place in games (five years later, narrative is more important than ever, despite an increase in importance of multiplayer); declining PC importance may dissuade developers from making PC games (not entirely accurate, but PC games certainly are taking a back seat to console development, for the most part); and the rise of indie developers through the use of online distribution (a fact which has already been mentioned).
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