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From Times Online
May 24, 2010
Spacewar! was an affront to computer science. Created in 1962 by a bunch of fun-loving computer students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this game of galactic dog fighting blew a raspberry at the starchy world of academia.
MIT’s professors were far from impressed. These students had used – nay, abused – a $120,000 state-of-the-art computer not to further scientific understanding but for frivolous entertainment. It bordered on scandalous.
Fast forward nearly 50 years and the descendants of Spacewar! have spawned an entertainment business that rivals the film industry in size. The game industry spends, makes and loses billions creating experiences that thrill millions, and governments compete to woo games companies to their shores with generous tax breaks.
And the appeal of games has never been broader. From the internet cafés of China and the pensioners enjoying tennis on a Wii to the commuter playing Bejeweled on their mobile or the office worker sneaking in a game of Solitaire on their PC when the boss isn’t looking; games are everywhere.
Games have also evolved far beyond the primitive days of Pong and now deliver interactive experiences that blow away the lazy stereotype of games as vacant and violent time wasters. Sim City, for example, took dry urban planning theory and condensed it into an accessible, easily understandable and enjoyable slice of mass entertainment.
Then there’s the 2007 game BioShock, which introduced a new generation to the libertarian ideas of Ayn Rand and delivered one of the most memorable fictional settings to grace any medium in recent years with its underwater Art Deco city Rapture. These are not one-offs, there are hundreds of other examples out there.
Games have also changed our culture more widely. The success and global influence of Japan’s game industry has encouraged many in the west to become interested in Japanese culture as a whole. The success of Pokémon, in particular, paved the way for the spread of anime films and manga comics in the west.
Games have also encouraged the adoption of new technology. The appeal of games was the primary driver of home computer sales for much of the 1980s and early 1990s. The PlayStation 2 led the move from video cassettes to DVDs, and the latest generation of home consoles have been doing the same for high-definition TV.
And yet for all this progress, influence and success, the mindset of the MIT professors who looked at Spacewar! with disdain still lingers.
Game players are still caricatured as antisocial youths with TV tans playing pointless rubbish.
Such stereotypes persist largely out of ignorance partly sustained by games being a relatively inaccessible medium. Disabilities aside, anyone can watch a film and enjoy it or listen to a piece of music and appreciate it. Games, however, are not as accessible. The multi-button controllers needed to play more complex games such as BioShock are a mystery to many. For those unfamiliar with these controllers, using them is like trying to eat granulated sugar with chopsticks while blindfolded.
As a result, many people base their views about games on out-of-context screenshots or a glimpse of people being killed in Grand Theft Auto. It’s a bit like seeing a gory moment from a horror film and concluding that every film is like that.
The game industry tends, understandably, to get upset at this. Game makers are producing some of the most vibrant and innovative pieces of art and entertainment around. Their creativity has enchanted millions, crossed cultural divides and is challenging the assumption that art is a passive experience for the audience.
Of course not every game is going to be culturally influential or artistically brilliant. Just like films some are uninspired or dull, but taken as a whole game makers are serving up some of the most dynamic, diverse and unique experiences in popular culture today. And what’s equally exciting is that games are at a stage in their development similar to early 1920s cinema, when film makers were only just starting to understand their medium well enough to start creating masterpieces.
It’s a position that, if anything, suggests games are set to become more not less important in the next decade. The only question that remains is whether you would rather be a disapproving professor or one of the people who gets to experience the thrills, excitement, energy and surprises of a new art form just as it comes of age?
Tristan Donovan is the author of Replay: The History of Video Games, published by Yellow Ant at £12.99.
