This book follows the history of video games from the 1950's to the emergence of the Wii. I enjoyed reading about the behind-the-scenes development problems and triumphs and that occurred while I was playing some of the games mentioned in the book. The characters are a who's-who of creators and who-published it of gaming: Miyamota, Will Wright, Blizzard Entertainment, Nintendio, Electronic Arts, RockStar Games, Sega, Sierra Online, Sony, X-Box, Playstation, Mario, Donkey Kong, EverQuest, Tetris, Sims, Grand Theft Auto, Bejeweled, World of Warcraft, and many, many more people, games, and companies.
It was inspiring to read about the people who kept imagining better and more innovative games and the almost insurmountable obstacles they had to overcome to bring their games to the public to play.
Here's a tongue-in-cheek summary of just about every story: developer/programmer has new idea for a game; nobody thinks it will sell or is impossible to develop; developer finds/begs for enough money to create the game; developers run out of money/time; developers show game to someone with deep pockets who now believes in them; game is delivered; hard-core gamers are wow'ed; suits arrive to continue milking the cash cow; original developer leaves company (sometimes with FU money, sometimes not); suits ruin/run-into-the-ground the original idea. Repeat with new players.
It was inspiring to read about the people who kept imagining better and more innovative games and the almost insurmountable obstacles they had to overcome to bring their games to the public to play.
Here's a tongue-in-cheek summary of just about every story: developer/programmer has new idea for a game; nobody thinks it will sell or is impossible to develop; developer finds/begs for enough money to create the game; developers run out of money/time; developers show game to someone with deep pockets who now believes in them; game is delivered; hard-core gamers are wow'ed; suits arrive to continue milking the cash cow; original developer leaves company (sometimes with FU money, sometimes not); suits ruin/run-into-the-ground the original idea. Repeat with new players.
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