Sunday, June 03, 2007

i, videogame

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Discovery Channel has produced a series about the history of video games called "I, Videogame". So far I've seen three episodes and my feelings are mixed. They have interviewed almost all the major players in the video game history - Steve Russell, Ralph Baer, Nolan Bushnell, Toru Iwatani, Shigeru Miyamoto, Alexey Pajitnov, Sid Meier, John Romero etc etc. But Discovery Channel doesn't let them speak. They cut the interviews to pieces and turn the material into simple catch phrases. Personally I don't believe that everybody who's interested in video games are speed addicts. I'm sure that most of us would actually manage to watch a programme that doesn't have cuts and sound effects every second. It would be nice if they had raised the bar a bit higher. A "serious" programme doesn't have to be boring. Here they have interviewed loads of interesting people involved in the video game industry but reduce the series to something they seem to believe will interest 14 year old kids addicted to Red Bull and Jolt Cola. I think that's a mistake and I'm still waiting for the definitive history of video games.

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