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.