How Videogames Changed the World

[pierrot]

Hmmm. It could be potentially problematic if I were ever to fall into it with a north-Irish woman—

A little surprised by the mention of Parappa and Guitar Hero over DDR. I don't think either were really the massive global phenomena (or at least represented in popular culture to the same extent) that DDR was. If anything, DDR paved the way for Guitar Hero more so than Parappa did.

The thought experiment with Twitter was somewhat interesting. I think of "gamification" as a fairly dirty word, personally. It always feels like a slightly menacing way of coaxing people into amicability with things they would otherwise be uncomfortable with.

I liked the quip about technology and developers of technology training people into common house pets, being rewarded for learning simple 'tricks.'

[emwearz]

So glad The Secret of Monkey Island was there, I don't know about changing the world, but I think most of my Primary (Grade) School years were full of stories, pictures and dioramas of Monkey Island.

Enjoyed that, thanks for the video.

[oxymoron]

Updated Link:

[Ghegs]

It was an entertaining watch. As a non-brit it was interesting to see the stuff about the Sinclair, Spectrum and BBC Micro, having never actually laid hands on them myself. Odd how the Amiga didn't even get a cursory mention, though. Maybe it wasn't that big from UK's perspective?

Some surprise choices in the 25 video games. I probably would've replaced Night Trap with Mortal Kombat (they were even handled in the same US court hearing, after all) and maybe Parappa with DDR, that way they also could've talked about the physical aspect some games have, which would've then lead to Wii Sports and Kinect and so on. But Parappa did come before DDR, so I guess it played it's part in inspiring DDR.

I would've liked to have seen Prince of Persia in there, though I'm not exactly sure what for. It was one of the first games that could be called realistic for the most part, with the smooth rotoscoped animation, stage design and the way the prince controlled, and I'm pretty sure it pioneered some things about storytelling in games. Then again, Mechner's own Karateka did many of the same things three years earlier, PoP just did everything better and was the greater game overall.

Also, I may have developed a small crush on Aoife Wilson while watching the show. Those eyes, man.