Video Games And Their Literary History
Was the first video game Pong?
This is what many believe and the answer is yes and no at the same time. It
really depends on what you want to consider a video game. According to David Winter,
the author of the site pong-story.com,
a video game is something that is played on a monitor or T.V.[1] Does Pong tell a story? It could be argued
that with Pong, came the birth of
conflict on a digital screen and the story was between the players. This idea
of a screen of light and pixels telling a story has fascinated me since my
early days with Mario on the Nintendo Console. So we have Pong as an early forerunner of telling a tale, but where does the
trend go from there?
The trend goes
to the arcades and it goes with a massive following. Fast forward a few
years to 1971 and we have our first coin operated arcade game, Computer Space[2]. The arcade scene was
born and it turned out to be fascinating one. When I was a kid, arcades were
this magical place with lights and sounds that made me feel that I had jumped
in to the future. It was a place where time did not exist and the only thing to
be had was fun with friends. Arcades in their very nature were a social
experience and this meta social experience was
the story. Many like minded people gathered to see who could get the top
score and who had the fastest thumbs. This display of techno dominance was at a
personal level and told a story all its own. When one gamer trumps the score of
another, it is emotion and it is a powerful thing. Some could argue that the
arcade scene was a niche thing and not many participated, but that would be
wrong. We have films such as The Last
Starfighter and Tron that prove otherwise. Both
of these films feature heavy usage of arcade machines. If the arcade was so
popular, where did it go? Like most forms of technology, the king of the techno
arena is usurped by a new arrival on the scene, and in this case, the home
console.
The
makers of Computer Space thought that
they were not getting enough money for their game so they formed a small
company called Atari.[2] Atari came out with the Atari 2600, which featured a
remake of the game Pong and it was
one of the highest selling games and consoles of its time. Now we have a shift
from the arcade story to the home story. Friends gather together in a
schoolyard and talk about how they got past a certain level on Zelda[4]. Video games were bringing
people together using something that is by definition a solo activity. At this
point, video games took their rightful place amongst books and movies as a form
of storytelling. Because they were being analyzed and critiqued amongst a group
of people. The evolution of video game lore does not stop there however. Because
at this time, video games were considered a "nerd" past time. It was
thought that only social outcasts sit in front of their T.V.s and play away.
Let us once again make a jump in to the future to the next highlight in digital
story telling development.
The
year was 2001 and I was standing in an RC Willey department store. My new Xbox
sitting in my cart and there I am, staring at the choices for my first Xbox
game. It was between some game with a robot looking guy on the cover and some
sort of party game. I thought, "well, robots are neat, why not that
one". So I pick up Halo and notice that you can have sixteen players, how
cool. I get home with my three other friends, because four is the max on one
console, and we start to play. Now, you must keep in mind, a first person
shooter is not new to us. Golden Eye, on the Nintendo 64, was our first foray
in to a shooter match. But Halo blew us away. The graphics and vehicles were
something else and absolutely amazing. Soon, my friends had Xboxs each and we
were doing sixteen person games every weekend. At this time, I argue, the
social outcast notion was blown away with fragmentation grenades and assault
rifles. In High School I even heard football players and the class president
talking about Halo. Video games had finally reached the mainstream audience of
teenagers and it was no longer a "nerd" thing to do. The story
telling by games at this point had evolved to include every average person and
all parties involved are better for it. Now we have seen that the video game
narrative has reached the masses, let us move to modern day and possibly what
lies ahead.
Today,
video games have stories as powerful as any book or movie ever could. One of my
personal favorites is Mass Effect.
This game is stunning. I sat down to play this game expecting just another
shooter, and I could not have been more wrong. Mass Effect is a sci-fi space drama with enough back story and
alien race lore to fill several novels. The story is so engrossing because you
can choose what and how your characters evolves and those choices evolve the
world around you[3]. This is the cutting edge of emergent story telling using a
video game and it is here to stay. Games in the future will not only shape the
world to your successes but also to your failures[5]. This new narrative ability is the future of
games and how they will tell a story. It is exciting and awe inspiring at the
same time. Thanks for reading my brief history on the story telling of video
games. Get out there and find a game that grabs you and does not let go!
[1]
Winter, David. "The Pong Story." Pong Story. 2010 accessed Sep 21, 2011. http://www.pong-story.com/intro.htm
[2]
History Of Video Games. Wikipedia. Sep 21, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games
[3]
caval 14. "Mass Effect: Keeping Wrex from Dying/Charismatic Achievement," YouTube. Sep 21,2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvNoqEs5B48&feature=related
[4]
Eiji Aonuma, "The Legend Of Zelda," Game
Informer 222, pg 40.
[5]
Jeff Marchiafava, "Managing You Mistakes," Game Informer 221. pg 46.
