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MUMBAI: The video game revolution, underway for decades,
has progressed from simple amusements created in the 1950s
to an all-pervasive force in today's popular culture that
rivals films and television. What began as a sub-culture pastime
has evolved and transcended genres to become a e form of expression
impacting everything from modern warfare to interpersonal
relationships. Discovery will give viewers an insight at this
successful multi-billion dollar behemoth in the show I,
Videogame.
The show will air eevry Thursday at 10 pm from 1 March 2007.
The show will explore the past, present and future of video
games and video gamers. Featuring interviews with giants in
the gaming industry of yesterday and today, this five-part
series examines the evolution of the videogame and its cultural
impact on the world of entertainment today.
From the early days of Pong to today's ever-popular Halo
2 and from Atari 2600 to Nintendo and PlayStation, the show
narrates the story of the people, their ideologies, the technology
behind video games and how it exploded into a cultural phenomenon.
The first episode shows how the concept of the video game
came into being. In the 1950s, the Cold War quickly evolved
between the world super powers of the United States and the
Soviet Union. Mutually assured destruction enforced an uneasy
stalemate, yet also drove computer technology to create missile
simulations in order to predict the results of a nuclear war.
This same computer technology was used to develop the first
computer game in 1958 - Tennis for Two. The space race and
Vietnam coincided with Steve Russell's game Space War
and the emergence of the first true giants in the video game
business - Nolan Bushnell and Atari. Space Invaders and Pac-Man
soon followed, and the Golden Age of videogames was born.
Video games emerged as a form of entertainment where the player
was in control, as opposed to the more passive diversion of
watching television.
The second episode looks at the scene in the late 1970s,
1980s and 1990s. Instead of controlling things like spaceships
and tennis rackets, video game technology let players command
recognisable characters with real faces and back stories.
Game developers were liberated to create more complex videogames
with heroic journeys - and Japanese creators like Shigeru
Miyamoto rose to prominence with star characters Mario, Donkey
Kong and Zelda.
But in the 1990s, Generation X emerged and the games of their
childhood couldn't satisfy the new teen angst that now permeated
pop culture. With Sega's Genesis and Sony's PlayStation, gamers
dismissed cute cartoon characters in favour of grittier heroes
like Sonic the Hedgehog and anti-heroes in games like Grand
Theft Auto III. This episode features interviews with Trip
Hawkins (Silicon Valley entrepreneur and co-founder of Electronic
Arts), Al Lowe (creator of Leisure Suit Larry), Tim Schafer
(creator of Full Throttle) and other figures in the gaming
industry.
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