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 On 05/09/2013 at 05:08 PM by Halochief90 See More From This User » |
All Your Base Are Belong To Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture just might be the most inappropriately titled book I have read yet! The title is not only quite the mouthful, but it more so seems to deal with the history of video games than its rise in popularity. The title was clearly made to be attention grabbing from the “All Your Base” meme – and the history of poor translations in games is not even covered in the book! Also, it spells “videogames” as one word which is a personal pet peeve of mine.
But enough about the title! Even if the central theme feels kind of shoehorned into the book, I always found its insight to the genesis of many influential video games and its creators quite interesting. Atari paid Spielberg $23 million just to make that wretched E.T. game. Tetris was made by a Russian programmer? Publishers initially thought no one would want to play games like SimCity or Bejeweled. In the early years, Atari hired many unemployed drug users to make its games and hardware. Crash Bandicoot was originally called “Sonic’s Ass” (based off the perspective of the 3D Sonic game ‘Sonic CD’)!
I could probably go on but what was actually the best part of the book is the inspiring look at how many game creators such as Ken Levine and Jason Rubin among others struggled to bring there ideas to fruition. Years of hardship, publisher battles and poverty ensued for these guys. Big successes often lead to failures just as enormous. The creators of the PC horror title ‘7th Guest’ made millions off the game… only to lose it all when everyone put the pressure on them for their next success. The author’s sympathetic viewpoint towards game developers is clearly present throughout the book. The author was afterall formerly an employee of Sony Online Entertainment.
The book is not without its problems though. Some chapters, such as the EverQuest and Wii chapters, are not nearly as interesting as some of the others. The Wii chapter in specific comes right at the end and many gamers like myself are already quite familiar with the success story behind that one. And like I said before, the central theme feels a little sketchy and shoehorned in.
Still, I would recommend the book to those more fascinated in the history of video games and perspective into the minds of their creators. As a point of comparison, I recommend this book far above the other book on video game culture that I have read: Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. That book was quite boring as it seemed to cater to a non-video game playing audience. It didn’t help that the author seemed annoyingly self-loathing. Though at least the title had video games spelt with two words! All Your Base is a solid read provided the topic interests you.
Sonic CD is a 2D platformer, I think you mean Sonic 3D? Or they do?
I spell video games as one word all the time, but I stopped myself just for you. lol
How far does it delve into the drug-induced antics of the Atari guys? I still wish Hunter S. Thompson could have followed them around or something.
Right, well Sonic CD is at least psuedo-3D isn't it? In that sense, you were still looking at Sonic's ass from the perspective of the game. I'm pretty sure Crash Bandicoot pioneered the true 3D platformer until Super Mario 64 stole all its thunder.
Haha, I don't know why that bothers me so much! Looking at the cover they might have just spelt video games that way so the alignment looked more neat!
It said something about workers being stoned on the job and even the Atari founder Nolan Bushnell relaxing with the employees sharing a joint!
I guess they were talking about the 3D special stages, so never mind. It just wasn't clear because the bulk of Sonic CD is not in that perspective, while Sonic 3D is.
Normal Sonic CD stage
Special Sonic CD stage
Sonic 3D Blast stage
Anyway, that weed story is a bit tamer than what I thought they did, just cause weed is weed (and not cocaine),but I've never had a joint with a boss; the 70s sound awesome. lol
Yeah, they must have been talking about the special stages. For some reason, I've always thought the whole game looked like that. Whenever a site would post screenshots of the game, it's always the special stages, perhaps because it just looks like a regular Sonic game otherwise.
I just checked the book again and needles were used by many workers and apparently cocaine was at involved with a least the main programmer on the Atari Pac-Man (which is infamously bad on the Atari, but according to the book that is blame of the hardware and not the drug-fueled programming)! It does sound very 70s, but Bushnell was really just too cheap to pay people a fair wage so he seeked out unemployment lines.
In fact, I just remembered what you are talking about was discussed on a Crash Bandicoot episode of DidYouKNowGaming? on Youtube.
And now that's the drug-induced programming story I was looking for! lol And hey, if I'm two barely-existent freelance jobs from being on that unemployment line, wouldn't mind if someone just took me off "tha streets" to write some code, although I might eventually ask for more money. lol
It's funny because that's exactly what happened to most of the employees eventually. They left because they were being worked 12 hours+ a day for such little pay. It's not like you can pay for a drug habit in peanuts anyway! Though that would be nice if it was that easy to make your start working for a gaming company!
I love history and curious facts, so i'll try to check the book.
Also, just for the lulz: videogames.
Lulz, I personally won't care if anybody in a blog or comment spells video games that way. In the same way that seeing someone spell you're as "your" doesn't bother me. I draw the line when I see it in a professional work though!
I'd like to read more video game books but they tend to be a little pricey and I can't bring myself to spend the money lol. I did find David Sheff's seminal book Game Over at the library when I was in junior high. Man, I loved that book. It's really good. That's where I first heard the story of Tetris. And it's crazy the things Nintendo had to do to get the NES in American stores.
Yeah, they are often quite expensive. This one was close to $20, though I got it as a Christmas gift so that works for me!
I remember being interested in reading Game Over many years ago. I was probably even in junior high back then!
Some people turn their nose up at it but I think that's mostly a case of disliking something that has been successful. It's kind of like the granddaddy of video game books and it's a really interesting read, so I'd definitely encourage you to track down a copy even if, like me, you get it from the library lol
You mean like how gamers turn their nose up at Call of Duty and Madden just because they are really succesful? I'm not a fan of those games, but I'm not about to go on a crusade to bash those games either.
I never realized that about the "videogames" thing. See? My spell check just corrected me! It is supposed to be two words. This book is one we should all read. The history of video games is full of visionary men and women. If not for their efforts we would all be missing a great deal of enjoyment.
Not to mention how influential many of these games were on the industry. You would have to wonder what games would be like had Nintendo not burst into the scene and saved games from being shovelware.
I read that back in the 80s there was no official way to spell video games. Many magazines and other media spelt it with one word, while others went with two.
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