Embark on an epic voyage across videogame history from the formative lab experiments of the Sixties, all the way through to the gigantic billion-selling industry of 2020.
Welcome to THE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES
History of Videogames
THE BIG BANG: STEVE RUSSELL AND THE CREATION OF SPACEWAR • Take a journey back in time to where it all began and hear from the man who coded the very first ‘true’ videogame
NOLAN BUSHNELL • FOUNDER OF ATARI
AL ALCORN • CREATOR OF PONG
ED LOGG • CREATOR OF ASTEROIDS
SPACE PIRATES • FOUR EARLY ARCADE GAMES THAT OWE A DEBT TO SPACEWAR!
THE 1970s • OUT OF THE LABS AND INTO THE WORLD
Games of the decade
AS TOLD BY DAVID BRABEN • FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS’ FOUNDER AND ELITE CO-CREATOR REMEMBERS THE TECHNOLOGY THAT HOOKED HIM ON CODING
THE FUTURE STARTS HERE
OTHER SYSTEMS FROM THE SEVENTIES
ATARI King Of The Seventies • Atari birthed the modern videogame industry. It cracked the code of coin-op success, pioneered games marketing and successfully invaded the living room. But before its mainstream hits turned Atari into a household name, the company began as a scrappy group of Silicon Valley hippies making it up as they went along
Designing out of the box at Atari: Regan Cheng
The movers and shakers of Atari • The people that turned the company into a juggernaut
Building an industry • How Atari shaped the games business
Pong • EVERY SAGA HAS A BEGINNING
BAER’S ODYSSEY • Considered the father of videogames, Ralph Baer’s impact on the industry spreads far and wide. We remember our meeting with the late, great pioneer
The Big Guns Come Out
Simon Says
An innovative inventor to the end
THE IMPACT OF SPACE INVADERS • THEY DIDN’T COME FROM OUTER SPACE BUT A COLLECTION OF ALIENS MADE JUST AS BIG AN IMPACT HERE ON EARTH WHEN THEY BOUNDED INTO ARCADES IN 1978. CREATOR TOMOHIRO NISHIKADO JOINS A HOST OF DEVELOPERS AND CULTURAL ARTISTS IN DISCUSSING THE WIDE-RANGING EFFECTS OF SPACE INVADERS
TIMELINE • Charting over 40 years of repelling invaders
WORLD DOMINATION • How Space Invaders made its way into the zeitgeist
OUT OF THIS WORLD • Key games that define the series
MARKING 40 YEARS • How Taito and Square Enix celebrated four decades of Space Invaders
THE 1980s • A DECADE OF EXPANDING HORIZONS AND ARTISTIC AMBITION
GAMES OF THE DECADE
AS TOLD BY TRIP HAWKINS • THE ELECTRONIC ARTS FOUNDER OPENS UP O N A PIVOTAL DECADE FOR GAMING AS AN ART FORM AND A BUSINESS
THE WILD WEST
OTHER SYSTEMS FROM THE EIGHTIES
RISE OF THE BEDROOM CODER • Home coding began in the early Seventies and continues to this day, but the indie developers of the Eighties were special. Discover how a generation of young computer enthusiasts rebuilt the games industry from their bedrooms
BUILT ON BEDROOM CODING • THE FIRMS THAT MADE BEDROOM CODING THEIR BUSINESS
BRILLIANT BEDROOM CODERS • INDUSTRY VETERANS THAT HAD HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
JET SET WILLY IN THE BEDROOM WITH MATTHEW SMITH • We spoke (and drank) with Jet Set Willy creator Matthew Smith, the archetypal Eighties bedroom coder, in the very house where he wrote his masterpiece
PRAISE FOR WILLY • Four special fans share their memories of Matthew’s masterpiece
THE RISE OF Nintendo® • FROM RELATIVE OBSCURITY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EIGHTS, ONE KYOTO-BASED COMPANY BECAME SO FAMOUS THAT IT BECAME A BYWORD FOR THE ENTIRE MEDIUM OF VIDEOGAMES. WE RETRACE THE STEPS OF NINTENDO’S PATH TO PROMINENCE WITH PAT CONTRI
FUTURE FOUNDATIONS • The key Eighties series that Nintendo would revisit for decades to come
THE HISTORY OF VIDEOGAME...