If you read the full title of the Steven L. Kent’s book, you’ll get a sense of its sprawling scope: The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon – The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Actually, the title is somewhat misleading because the discussion predates even Pong, going back to carnival games and the burgeoning coin-op market. It then progresses through the history of new technologies, gaming companies, and so on, largely pinned around the release of new gaming systems and the response the public had.
The title is also a little misleading in that, really, it ought to be called the penultimate history of video games, given that after 600 pages, we just get to the release of Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation 2, and Sega Dreamcast. Despite this book only going until about the year 2000, I have to say: it was more than enough.
In fact, the book makes me wonder about my commitment to capital-H History against what I would say is journalism. History, as presented here, offers a lengthy fact sheet but with, what I would argue, is not much of an ‘angle.’ There are lengthy sections that talk about what games were released, what the games were about, how many units they sold, and so on. I had a touch of ‘the nostalgias’ when it would refer to games that I played and enjoyed—the masterpieces of Final Fantasy III or Super Mario RPG, for example—but much of the time I felt like I was reading a game catalogue. Essentially, I needed more of why do these things matter? What’s the narrative thread that makes it compelling? What’s the hook? It’s a book that really highlights the difference between what I might refer to as ‘straight history’ against cultural criticism, philosophy, theory, or, as I mentioned, journalism.
One vein that would be well-worth more mining is something that Kent glosses over, gives only a passing comment. Perhaps it’s because early games were seen as forms of gambling, but the Yazuka were involved in the game industry. Kent notes that one clan of the Japanese mafia “tried to take over Konami, the company that made Frogger and Contra. When the owner of the company appealed to a friend in a rival clan for help, he touched off a war and had to go into hiding. When Nakamura investigated the counterfeit Breakout machines, he discovered that a Yakuza clan had manufactured them. It was a dangerous situation.” That, to me, comes as such a surprise—if the investigative journalism were to make it possible, a whole book just about that could be an incredible, riveting book.
Some of the most interesting, entertaining moments of the text are offered as throwaway bits of humour. Most notably, the exchanges between programmers and their bosses I found really compelling for what they said about the work culture of the video game industry. One of the bosses recounts the challenges of working with programmers in the early days of gaming, since they would show up for work, do something great, and then disappear for a few days. In one anecdote, a developer gives the following anecdote, which resonates with me for obvious reasons:
I understood that this was a very talented breed of people. I remember one guy came in; he was stoned out of his mind, he just wanted to read poetry to me, and I sat with him for four hours because he was one of our top programmers, just to let him feel I understood him and I cared about him. At the end he said, “You know, I really appreciate what you’ve done for me.”
That programmer’s eccentrism is a delight, since it blends two of my core interests. In recounting the development of the first Final Fantasy game, Kent notes that creator Hironobu Sakaguchi had intended to leave the video game industry. Final Fantasy was to be his exit (of course, before it sold massively well and roped him back in). I loved the interaction between him and is boss that Sakaguchi recounts as follows:
[At the time] The only person you had to go to was the president of the company, and he didn’t really understand games that well. Selling him on the concept of an RPG wasn’t that hard. I just went up and said, “I want to do an RPG.” He said, “Is that good? Is that interesting?” and I said, “Yeah. It’s fun.” So, he said, “Okay.”
The blasé approach of the boss is a delight. The simplicity of their interaction is great, and I have to say the audiobook delivers the lines “Is that good? Is that interesting?” in just a perfect tone. The ignorance of the boss towards what an RPG is funny, but appropriate, given that RPGs hadn’t gotten huge yet. Actually, the whole story of how Final Fantasy came to exist is pretty interesting, since they started with the hardware and then decided how to structure the game (rather than having an idea for the game and then building around the hardware).
Kent’s history, though, is at its most interesting when he discusses the conflicts and legal battles that ensued as the industry developed. There were some pretty shady tactics in the early games industry. For instance, Atari established its own competition to corner more of the coin-op machine market. They asked a neighbour to start the company, gave them their #2 guy in everything, gave them designs to get started, and so on. Atari members were on the corporate board of the competition they established in an elaborate ruse.
There are two core legal battles that Kent references throughout the book that stand out as significant historical moments: issues over copyright and issues over video game violence. In 1988, Atari lawyers illegally obtained a reproduction of the TenNES program by going to the copyright office and signing a false affidavit where they claimed to need access to defend themselves against an infringement suit Nintendo hit them with. The suit, though, was “entirely fictional.” That then gave them the ability to develop ways around their security features. I can’t believe that they were so ballsy about it. I kind of love the duplicitousness. There was also quite a bit about proprietary programs and intellectual property. There were discussions of the limitations of form, when drawings become more human than animal figurations, when patents apply if the user’s input is required. All of those legal fights are interesting in their own right, which again, might warrant further attention in a deep-dive book.
The other legal case is as you might expect. The debates about video game violence have been raging on for years and especially, Kent notes, following the massacre at Columbine. The conspiratorial nature of the case is compelling. Sega emerged into the video game scene with a more in-your-face 90s radical attitude, which meant video games with more violence, like Mortal Kombat. Sega was also doing very well financially, and so when lawsuits about video game violence emerged, there were rumours that Nintendo orchestrated—or at least encouraged—the hearings to damage Sega’s “runaway sales”, since Nintendo is more family-friendly and could gain an edge there. Just as a moment of irony, I’ll mention here that the same company that was manufacturing games based on Bible stories was also manufacturing pornographic ones, so the ethics of the industry are hard to pin-point. For all the moralism, there’s always money to be made.
The section on video game violence also made me reconsider time. One woman testified about how games that were more mature still had toys that were advertised towards children. It’s a reasonable moment of hypocrisy to call out, actually, and the discussion of toys made me think about how time has collapsed at either end. Young children play games targeted towards older players (for me: Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Resident Evil were probably in this category), and older players collect toys that are geared towards children. It’s just an interesting way to consider the human experience. Maybe we’re seeing that ‘age’ has ended.
As you can see, there are some interesting moments in the history, but as I tell my students: there needs to be a more specific angle to make it truly compelling. By the end of the 600 page book, I was already long-ready to move on. In addition, the style of the book rarely justifies its length. In some ways, it’s like reading an extensive Wikipedia page. So, even though the history of video games post 2001 would likely be far more compelling, I think I’ve had quite enough of Kent’s brand of history for now. Maybe in ten years we’ll see where we’re at.
Happy reading; happy new year.
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