[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
[TIRES SCREECHING]
- It's an industry
that's revolutionized
every area of entertainment.
From television to
sports to movies.
The video game business rakes
in more than $20 billion a year,
making bigger bucks
than even Hollywood.
- This industry was
created on products
that were so exciting
that people would stay up
all night outside a store
to get it the next morning.
- But how did two lines and a
dot turn into the high tech,
hyper realistic worlds of
games like The Sims and Halo?
It's not just about
circuit boards and chips,
it's about people driven
by vision and obsession.
JOHN ROMERO: Video games
to me is my whole life.
That's all I've
done since I was 12.
- It's about games that
have been blamed for making
kids antisocial and violent.
- If you play too
much doom, you're
going to end up going
on a shooting spree.
[GUNFIRE]
There's really people
who believe this.
- It's about feuds, wars,
and even a little bit
of good old fashioned piracy.
- If they were going
to copy our stuff,
we were going to bury
them one way or another.
- But most of all,
it's about how
a whole generation
grabbed the joystick
and got juiced up
on video gaming.
The secrets behind
the games, the passion
that powered the industry, and
the guys who made it happen.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Video games.
For some people, they're
a blast from the past.
[VIDEO GAME SOUND EFFECTS]
Something they used to
do at the local arcade
when they were hanging
out after high school.
But for others, video games are
the new technological frontier.
And innovative form of
communication and storytelling,
and the future of entertainment.
Hi, I'm Tony Hawk.
A lot of you are probably used
to seeing me with a skateboard
and looking a little
something like this.
And a lot of you gamers
are even more used
to seeing me like this.
I got into video games
early on, even before I got
to be a video character myself.
In fact, I don't think I
even had my first board yet,
and where could you find me?
Playing Pac-Man down
at the pizza parlor.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
But games have come a
long way since then.
And if you think the history
of the video game invasion
is all about cool graphics
and cutting edge technology,
well you're right.
But it's also a story about
a group of unique individuals
who started with
nothing but ideas.
Guys who came out
of their garages
and ended up as power players
in a multi-billion dollar
industry who revolutionized
entertainment and turn
themselves into rock stars.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
And the first rock star
of them all was this guy.
This is Willie Higginbotham.
He helped invent the nuclear
bomb and the first computer
[EXPLOSION]
The bomb looked like this.
The game looked like this.
A primitive version of tennis.
It was just a dot
moving back and forth
on an oscilloscope screen.
It showed up as
a novelty exhibit
at Brookhaven
National Lab in 1958
and generated about as much
excitement as this picture.
Mortal Kombat it was not.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Fast forward, 1961.
Student and pioneering hacker
Steve Russell, nicknamed Slug.
He spent six months tapping
into $120,000 computer at MIT.
End result, a punch card
driven video called, Space War.
STEVE KENT: He was
the one who conceived
the idea of making
a game that would
be completely interactive.
It was a game where
there were two rockets.
A game where a Flash
Gordon style rockets that
would fly around
shooting each other
with a sun in the middle
that had some gravity.
If it sucked you in,
you got destroyed.
TONY HAWK: Space Wars spread
to universities around America
on an early version
of the internet.
But would the average Joe
spend $120,000 to own one?
Slug figured, no way and
never patented the idea.
He left MIT without graduating.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Jump to 1966.
A little device
called television
had made it into almost
every living room in America.
It was a cultural phenomenon.
But to Ralph Baer, Vice
President of Engineering
at electronics giant
Sanders Associates,
it was a business opportunity.
[CHA-CHING]
RALPH BAER: The concept
was this, 40 million TV
sets out there in the US alone.
If I could hit 1% of
that, that's 400,000.
Attach some gadget to 400,000
set, I got a business.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Baer needed his
play device to fit on a shelf.
So that didn't give
his little brown box
much room for processing power.
He wasn't doing much better
than old Higgy, just two dots
moving on a screen.
No way this was going to
set the world on fire.
Then it hit him.
A blockbuster breakthrough
that would blow the roof off
of home entertainment forever.
Three spots!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
RALPH BAER: The
third spot became
a ball that made it into a ping
pong game or a tennis game.
Once we had that third
ball going back and forth,
we knew we had something.
TONY HAWK: By
1971, Baer's bosses
had patented the brown
box and licensed it
to television
manufacturer Magnavox.
Now called Odyssey, it began
showing up at various trade
fairs around the country.
RALPH BAER: The Odyssey
was the hit of the show.
I had a hard time not
getting up in my seat
and then jumping up and
down saying, that's my baby.
- The system is called
Odyssey and the hardware
consists of a master control
and two player control
units connected by cable to any
set 18 inches or larger, black
and white or color.
The players will simply
switch to an unused channel,
select their game,
insert the program card
in the control box, and place
the overlay on the TV screen.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SELLAM ISMAIL: So for instance,
if you were playing the tennis
game, this would
actually using--
from static
electricity, would cling
to the front of your television.
So this would be the
overlay for a hockey game.
TONY HAWK: The Odyssey hits
store shelves in May, 1972,
and sold for $100.
And hey, if you wanted
to pop for another $29,
you could also buy
yourself this wicked weapon
and play the first ever
shooter video game.
Seems that even then,
guns and video games
were destined to be together.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
And to convince America how
hip it was to own an Odyssey,
Magnavox got the King of Cool,
old blue eyes, Frank Sinatra
himself to pitch the product.
RALPH BAER: Unfortunately
in the beginning,
they connected to a Magnavox
television set, of course.
That got the idea abroad
that you needed a Magnavox
television set to play games.
And they had to undo that
by convincing customers
in the store that you could
indeed plug it into any TV set.
TONY HAWK: It took over
a year, but Magnavox
managed to hook up about 150,000
Americans and their televisions
to an Odyssey system.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Next player in the
game, Nolan Bushnell.
An employee of a northern
California electronics firm.
He played Slug Russell's
Spacewar at engineering school
and couldn't get it
out of his brain.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: And
actually thought, hey,
this would be great news
in an amusement park,
but how do you put a million
dollar computer into--
and pay for it at $0.25 a throw?
Remember, the microprocessor
hadn't been invented yet.
And then one day the
mini computer for $5,000
came across my desk.
I mean, the ad for it.
I had the epiphany of
being able to reduce it
to a single board that was
actually a fancy, signal
generator, if you would.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: In 1971,
Nolan's first video game,
Computer Space hit
American pinball arcades.
Sleek, sexy, and we all
remember the first time
we played it, right?
Right.
It was one of the biggest
turkeys of all time.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: The problem with
the game was that I loved it,
all my friends loved it, but
all my friends were engineers.
It was a little bit
too complex for the guy
with a beer in a bar.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Nolan's
next move, taking $500
and starting his own company
in Santa Clara, California,
with buddy Ted Dabney.
The year was 1972.
The company was called Atari.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: Atari comes
from the Japanese Game
Go which is plight
warning saying, watch out,
you're going to get whacked.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: First big
hire, engineer Al Alcorn.
Nolan, proving he
already has what
it takes to be a great
corporate executive,
landed Al by lying to him.
AL ALCORN: He told me he had a
contract with General Electric
to build a consumer
video game, a home video
game, which was almost
impossible to do in those days.
And the fact that nobody
from General Electric
ever came by or called or wrote
us a letter didn't occur to me.
I was too busy
building the prototype.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: We decided
to give him a test game.
Call it throw away game, it
was something that was simple.
Basically, ping pong.
two Paddles on either side,
ball moving between them.
TONY HAWK: Man does
this sound familiar.
But remember, it was
still early in 1972
and the Odyssey hadn't
hit stores shelves yet.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The concept was still
fair game and AL
had his own spin on the idea.
AL ALCORN: One of the
things I discovered
is that if the ball didn't
speed up, it wasn't fun to play.
So I added the ball
speed up to the game.
And the other thing that we did
at the very end was the sound.
And since I was already
way over budget,
I poked around and found
tones that were already
existent in the machine.
And that became the sound.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: We said
OK, let's call it Pong.
And we put it in
Andy Capp's Tavern
in Sunnyvale, California.
AL ALCORN: This baby here is
the original Pong prototype
that went to Andy Capp's
Tavern in Sunnyvale.
And it has the
original wire wrap
that I built in three
months, in 1972.
We put it in a box,
put up on a barrel.
[BEEPING]
NOLAN BUSHNELL: It
was an immediate hit.
We weren't aware of
just how much of a hit
it was until we
got a service call
and found that the coin
box had totally filled up
and wouldn't take
anymore quarters.
Those were kind of technical
problems that we can solve.
[COINS DROPPING]
AL ALCORN: Here we have
one of the first quarters
that the Pong machine
ever made, which now
represents a multi-billion
dollar industry.
And it's in a little
piece plastic.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Atari started
rolling out their machines
in November of 1972.
And America went Pong crazy.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: There
were several reasons
that Pong was very successful.
The first one was,
it was extremely
easy to play, but very,
very difficult to master.
They had to pay a lot of
money to get really good.
The second one is that
women found that they
were better players than men.
It turns out that women
have better small motor
coordination than men do.
And it became
socially acceptable
for women to ask men to
come over and play Pong.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: More players
meant more machines.
And Atari needed more
manpower to build them.
Fast.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: We tried
a few social experiments
with running buses into
undesirable parts of the town
and giving people a chance
to come and have a job.
It was kind of a rude
awakening from some
of our Age of Aquarius
belief structures.
STEVE KENT: They
hired whoever they
could hire in the beginning.
Which meant they
got a lot of bikers.
You talked to some of
the straitlaced people
and they'd talk about being
scared to walk the floor.
They'd talk about
going into bathrooms
and seeing used needles
and stuff on the ground.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: The
converse is, the 20%
that stayed with us really
appreciated the opportunity.
Became some of our most
valuable employees.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: But who wouldn't
want to work at a company
where the bonuses
came in beer kegs?
And strategy meetings
were held in hot tubs.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: Since we
had a lot of young people,
we would constantly
offer to throw
a party if they hit quota.
And it turns out when you've
got 18, 19, 20 year olds,
they're much more interested
in a party than an extra $0.50
an hour.
So we got known as
a party company.
STEVE KENT: There's a story
that if you walked by the Borega
Street building and you breathed
deeply by the air vents,
you'd get stoned because
the pot smoking inside of it
was so heavy.
DAVID CRANE: It was a
very laid back culture,
which is very important
in a creative environment.
I mean, you can't
really punch the clock
and come up with
something creative.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: It didn't
seem to matter
what was going on inside
Atari because on the outside,
they'd become the kings of the
60-year-old arcade business.
And in America, how do you
know when you've really
made it to the top?
When people start suing you.
It wasn't long before Atari got
hit with their first lawsuit.
And it came from Magnavox who
claimed that Pong violated
Ralph Baers' Odyssey patent.
AL ALCORN: And I
looked at the patent
and I said, my God,
this guy has patented
the idea of any kind
of a moving object
on a video screen
controlled by anything
and it was filed in 1969.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: Magnavox was
based on analog technology,
which makes a fuzzy.
Didn't have sound,
didn't have score.
I mean, you didn't really
feel like you were you beating
somebody when you beat them.
Which is one of the core
essence of what a game is.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: But hey, what
about those Magnavox trade
show demos?
RALPH BAER: Nolan
Bushnell played
a game in Burlingame, California
on May 24th, I think, 1972.
He signed a guest book
playing the ping pong game.
TONY HAWK: Bushnell decided
to accept Magnavox's offer
of a settlement.
Atari paid Magnavox just
under a million dollars
and in exchange, became
their first licensee.
Game over and
everyone's a winner.
And who says losses don't work?
NOLAN BUSHNELL:
Believe it or not,
it was never a very
big issue for us.
We settled it for less than
it had cost us to defend it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Then Atari went on
the attack against the clones,
knock offs, and pirate
versions of Pong
that were popping up
all over the world.
NOLAN BUSHNELL:
We actually became
quite diabolical
about seeing ways
that we could just mess them up.
[CRASH]
We put a chip in
and we purposely
mismarked it so that
when somebody copied us,
they'd put the wrong chip in.
We felt like we were in a war.
TONY HAWK: It was a war that
would change entertainment
forever.
And as the Atari troops
attack the arcades,
Bushnell got ready to
open a second front
in living rooms across America.
The battle for video game
dominance was about to begin.
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In 1974, nearly two years
after Pongs introduction,
everyone had played
the game so much
that 3/4 of the world
population was suffering
from carpal tunnel syndrome.
No, not really.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
But in the arcades, Pong fever
was still running hot as ever.
[BUZZER]
People couldn't get enough.
So Nolan Bushnell
figured he'd give
them more by introducing
a home version of Pong.
NOLAN BUSHNELL:
Al Alcorn said, I
believe we can put
Pong on a chip.
And I said, let's do it.
AL ALCORN: This
is actually what's
inside the coin operated
Pong video game.
There's about 75 integrated
circuits on this.
And that was all replaced
by what's in this.
TONY HAWK: Atari cut
a deal with Sears
and over 150,000 home Pong
units flew off the shelves
during the 1975 holiday season
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now the established
gaming leader,
Atari was the place
where top programming
talent wanted to be.
STEVE KENT: Steve Jobs
showed up unannounced one day
and wanted a job.
He was unwashed, unkempt,
smelled bad, had no degree.
Al Alcorn's secretary came to
him and said, what do I do?
And Al Alcorn's
comment was, well
we should either hire
him or call the cops.
And Al hired him.
TONY HAWK: Jobs brought
along a buddy, Steve Wozniak.
NOLAN BUSHNELL: We
hired Steve Jobs
and we didn't know that
we sort of got Woz along
with the package.
He was never an official
employee of Atari
but hung out with Jobs
a lot in the labs.
They did break out, actually.
STEVE KENT: There
was a line of bricks
and you tried to break the
bricks away by knocking
the ball against them.
It was Pong only it was
Pong turned vertical.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Pretty soon, Jobs
and Wozniak broke out of Atari
to start their own little
business, Apple Computer.
Jobs asked his boss to invest
in the idea, Bushnell declined.
The company's capital was tied
up producing home Pong units
and developing their next
home console concept.
They called it--
NOLAN BUSHNELL: The VCS,
the Video Computer System
was the 2600.
And became universally
known as the Atari.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AL ALCORN: The idea
behind the 2600
was to get away from having
to build a whole new custom
chip for every new game.
So if we can make the game just
be in a cartridge and software,
we could release it much
faster and much cheaper
than we could with
a whole new game.
TONY HAWK: Nolan
needed big money
to develop and launch the 2600.
He got it by
selling the company.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Warner Communications, headed
by Chairman Steve Ross,
paid Bushnell $28
million for Atari.
Not bad for a $500 investment.
Plus, Nolan would
still draw a paycheck
as the company chairman.
[CHA-CHING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In October of 1977, supported
by a handful of games
like Street Racer,
Indy 500, and Kombat,
the Atari 2600 hit the streets.
STEVE KENT: It was a bomb.
It did nothing.
They didn't get them out
in time for Christmas.
They didn't sell, the
ones that were out there.
And Warner hit the roof.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AL ALCORN: The
net result of that
was they removed Nolan
and put in Ray Kassar, who
was the person from the east
coast who worked at Burlington
Industries and was probably
a more professional,
big businessman to run Atari.
TONY HAWK: Nolan was out.
But don't cry for this guy.
He made even more money
with his next business,
a chain of family restaurants
called, Chuck E. Cheese.
Now, while all of this
was going on at Atari,
something even bigger was going
on in a galaxy far, far away.
In 1977, the movie
mega-hit Star Wars
sent the nation's sci-fi crazy.
And in less than
a year, a new game
arrived that cashed
in on the craze.
Atari's competitor Midway
got the arcade upper hand
with a Japanese import that went
by the name, Space Invaders.
JEFF GREEN: We're all
fascinated by the Pong machines
and then we were fascinated
by Space Invaders, which
again, was just lines
coming down from the screen.
TONY HAWK: Ultimately,
you couldn't win.
But it was the
first arcade machine
to record and
display a high score.
And that just made
people want to play more.
JEFF GREEN: You
look at games today
that cost literally millions
and millions of dollars
that take literally four or five
years, or more, to complete.
Most of those games don't rival
the game play and addictiveness
of Space Invaders.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: It took Atari nearly
a year but they did strike back
with Asteroids.
An updated version of
Slug Russells' Spacewar.
The object, breakup
a surrounding storm
of falling asteroids and
avoid getting blown up
by a fleet of flying saucers.
JOHN SMEDLEY: I can
remember Asteroids
like there's no tomorrow.
Going down there and literally
begging my mother for quarters.
And you know, an hour later
I'm back asking for more.
It's a good memory for me.
JOHN ROMERO: The first ones
that I played was basically
Space Invaders and Asteroids.
I always spent my
allowance really fast.
It was only $5 a week.
It was like two
days and I mean, I
was stretching it as
far as I could go.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: As the '70s disco
danced their way into history,
1980 arrived.
And true 8-bit color came
to the arcade screens.
Up until then, any
colors seen in a game
had been achieved by
using tinted overlays.
Atari was pumping out hits
like Missile Command and Battle
Zone, which had a custom version
built for the American military
to use in combat training.
One of the biggest
hits of the year
was Defender from
Williams, an Atari rival.
This was another
"fight the aliens" game
but it was cooler
because it had a radar
screen that let
you see everything
that was coming your way.
But there was one invader
no one saw coming.
Check him out.
He's got a classic profile.
[PAC-MAN MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
His name, Pac-Man.
He was born at a
Japanese game company
called Namco and brought to the
US by Atari's nemesis, Midway.
Originally called
Puck-Man, Midway
was afraid vandals would
have too much fun changing
the first letter of his name.
Small and yellow, he ate
everything in his path.
Little dots and
ghosts with names
like Blinky, Pinky,
Inky, and Clyde.
AL KAHN: I loved Pac-Man.
It was just such a simplistic
movement with a joystick
and yet it was easy to
play, hard to master.
And that was really, I
think, the secret of it.
[PAC-MAN SOUND EFFECTS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: It was also the
first time a character was
the star of a video game.
Most important thing
about characters?
You can license them.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pretty soon, Pac-Man had a
song in the top 40 charts.
A Saturday morning TV show.
And he even made it to the
cover of Time magazine.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Then a year later, Ms. Pac-Man
showed up on the scene.
Same profile, only
this time sporting
a bow and a beauty spot.
There were also more mazes, more
ghosts, an even bigger success.
[MS. PAC MAN THEME MUSIC
PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Time to head back over
to Japan and the company
called Nintendo.
They got their start in 1889
manufacturing playing cards.
By 1980, under the leadership
of Hiroshi Yamauchi,
the company was desperate to
cash in on the video craze.
STEVE KENT: Nintendo
was doing modestly well
in the Japanese arcade business.
They could not get a foot
in, in the US market.
In desperation, Yamauchi
turned to this guy
he had hired named
Shigeru Miyamoto.
TONY HAWK: By
Japanese standards,
Miyamoto was sort of a wild man.
When it came to music, he loved
the Beatles and bluegrass.
He played the banjo and
he loved designing toys.
STEVE KENT: And they said,
can you make a game for us?
Miyamoto started spouting
off about how he'd do this
and he'd do that.
And Yamauchi's like,
yeah, yeah, sure.
Just make us a good game.
TONY HAWK: Miyamoto came
up with something that
had never been done in gaming.
A story to motivate the action.
[DONKEY KONG MUSIC PLAYING]
A gorilla runs away
from a carpenter
and steals the
carpenters girlfriend.
Carpenter chases the
gorilla through a factory
to rescue the girl.
Hey, nobody said
it was Shakespeare.
[DONKEY KONG MUSIC PLAYING]
Literally translated, Miyamoto
Japanese title for the game
came out as, "Stubborn Gorilla."
Wanting something sexier, he
went to the Japanese/English
Dictionary.
For stubborn, he
came up with donkey.
Gorilla became Kong.
Yamauchi called his
American headquarters,
headed by Minoru Arakawa
and Howard Lincoln,
and gave everyone that
good news on the game.
STEVE KENT: And he
said, Donkey Kong.
I mean, they almost passed out.
They were like, Donkey Kong?
What's a Donkey Kong?
I think Howard Lincoln's comment
was, Donkey Kong, Konkey Dong.
I mean, come on.
But Donkey Kong
was a magic game.
[DONKEY KONG MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Donkey Kong
fever swept the arcades.
Closely followed
by Donkey Kong Jr.
When it came to merchandising,
the monkey was natural.
But it was really the man who
became the breakout character.
Plans were soon made to give
the little guy with the mustache
his own game.
Everyone knew he had
personality but what he really
needed was a name.
American Nintendo
chief Minoru Arakawa
came up with the answer.
STEVE KENT: Originally,
he was Jump Man.
And the Nintendo's landlord
out here, Mario Sigali,
pissed off Arakawa.
So then Arakawa re-named Jump
Man, Mario, after Mario Sigali.
TONY HAWK: And when
Mario got his new name,
he also got a new
job as a plumber.
Along with a new
brother named Luigi.
[MARIO BROS THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
And the Mario Bros
jumped into the arcades
in a series of games that
are still popular today.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
By 1982, it seemed
like the country
was having one great big party.
Ronald Reagan was in power,
the economy was booming,
and the gaming industry
was taking a big slice
of the disposable income.
Americans had now spent
over 75,000 man years
playing video games and dropped
more than 20 billion quarters
in the process.
It looked like things
couldn't get any better.
And you know what?
They couldn't.
Players in the
video game industry
were about to move
up to the next level
and faced a revolution that
would tear the business apart.
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is the first
game I ever played.
There was a machine just like
it at the local pizza place.
Man, it's still great.
Pac-Man, not the pizza.
But there was one version of
this game that wasn't so hot.
In fact, it was so bad that it
nearly killed off video games
for good.
Rewind to 1980.
Namco and Midway's
Pac-Man is eating up
most of the arcade
business and cutting
into Atari's bottom line.
[PAC-MAN SOUND EFFECTS]
The company had a new
president, Ray Kassar
who was a marketing pro.
Looking for a new
revenue stream,
he set his sights
on American homes
and getting the 2600
console into more of them.
Marketing 101, people
buy what they know.
And people know these guys.
Space Invaders had kicked
Atari's butt in the arcades
back in 1978.
Now Kassar thought they were
the ones who could save it.
In the best, can't beat
them, join them tradition,
he went straight to Taito, the
original Japanese company that
designed the game and
bought the rights to a home
version of Space Invaders.
When it hits stores,
2600 sales skyrocketed.
Kassar wanted more.
DAVID CRANE: We were asked to do
home versions of popular arcade
titles.
Very difficult task
because the Atari 2600
is a very simple game
system, electronically.
Whereas an arcade
game has $4,000
worth of technology in it.
TONY HAWK: Faster
than you could say
Asteroids, more Atari arcade
knockoffs hit store shelves.
Atari soon had a reputation
as a profitable company
and a great place
to work, but only
if you were in upper management.
ALAN MILLER: The culture
changed at Atari.
When Bushnell was forced out
and the new management came in,
they didn't understand
the industry.
They didn't understand
consumer electronics.
They didn't
understand technology.
They had little respect
for the creative work
that was being done by game
designers such as myself.
AL ALCORN: These
engineers would create
a software program that would
result in $20- $30 million
in sales.
And they were making
this little paltry salary
and they figured gee, I'd
like to get a penny or two
or three per each cartridge.
DAVID CRANE: So we go to
the president of Atari
and point that out, and he said
to us, and I'll quote, he said,
you are no more important
to that game than the person
on the assembly line
who puts it together.
That didn't sit
too well with us.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Contempt
breeds competition.
So four of Atari's
top game designers
gave Kassar the kiss off and
started their own company.
- You blast light
out of your sense.
Star Master by Activision.
ALAN MILLER: The most
significant thing
about Activision was that it
was the first independent video
game publisher.
Prior to our formation,
all game software
was created by the
hardware manufacturers.
DAVID CRANE: One of the
differences with Activision
was we promoted the game
creator as an author.
If you're creative
at what you do,
you kind of like some
recognition from the public.
ALAN MILLER: Activision
was a huge success.
We grew from $0 in
revenue to $160 million
in revenue in three years.
TONY HAWK: Their first hits
included Pitfall, Ka-Boom,
and Freeway.
- I came up with Freeway
on Lakeshore Drive
in Chicago, which is
10 lanes of traffic.
Looked out the window
and there was this idiot
trying to cross the street.
And I'm looking at
that and I said,
that would make a
good video game.
TONY HAWK: Atari wasn't the
only game in town anymore.
More companies were
making more consoles.
Activism was making
games for all of them.
Magnavox had the Odyssey 2.
Famous toymaker Mattel
had Intellivision.
Mattel's ads for
their console featured
intellectual literary
figure George Plimpton.
- I've been comparing the
exciting new Intellivision
space game Star Strike with
one of the most popular Atari
games, Asteroids.
TONY HAWK: I guess they
figured most Americans had
to be dragged away from
reading War and Peace to play
video games.
- Star Strike features our
most exciting visual effect--
total destruction of a planet.
Which is why after
Star Strike, Asteroids
left [INAUDIBLE] rather flat.
To-to-total destruction
of a planet.
TONY HAWK: Then another unlikely
player showed up on the field--
a plastic pool
maker called Coleco.
- We had looked at this
whole arcade position
and believed that electronics,
as it related to kids,
was going to be very,
very important angle.
So we started to work on a
number of different products
that's used electronic
chips as they're heart.
- I'm an electronic quarterback.
I start in the back field
and follow my blockers.
- Blockers?
I don't have any blockers.
MAN: Coleco's
Electronic Quarterback.
- We did the head to head
series of dedicated games,
where you played
against an opponent
on the other side of the game.
- Now we can play
at the same time.
- I'm offense.
- I'm defense.
MAN: With Head to Head,
you're really in the game.
A power sweep.
You pass.
He blitzes.
Intercepts.
- This is real competition.
- And we did the miniature
tabletop arcade games,
which are miniature versions
of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.
They looked exactly
like the arcade games.
- They were very successful.
And that Coleco on the road
to developing more video
and electronic games.
TONY HAWK: And the new console
called Coleco Vision was born.
- Coleco Vision was an attempt
to try and replicate as closely
as possible in those days
the actual experience
of the arcade.
TONY HAWK: Knowing
they needed a hot game
to kick off their console
sales, they set their sights
on the arcade hit--
Donkey Kong.
And bought themselves
a six month
exclusive to the
game from Nintendo.
Coleco Vision became
the smash hit of 1982.
- And Donkey Kong
was the driver.
We impacted it with the unit.
You bought the
Coleco Vision, you
got a Donkey Kong cartridge.
TONY HAWK: Suddenly,
another 800 pound gorilla
came into the room--
Universal Studios.
They claimed that Nintendo's
Donkey Kong violated
their copyright on
the movie King Kong
and they wanted their
piece of the action.
- It's a great court case.
They actually at one point
brought in a Donkey Kong
machine and played
the game for the judge
in the middle of the core,
which was quite a scene.
TONY HAWK: But the
biggest laugh came
when court papers, prepared
by Universal's own lawyers,
revealed that the
original copyright holder
that the rights fall
into the public domain.
- So in the end, not
only did they lose,
they have to pay damages
and court expenses.
TONY HAWK: Hate to say
it, but we got to--
Nintendo made a monkey
out of Universal.
And what about those monkeys
who were running Atari?
- They were affected by waves
of people leaving the company--
first, Activision.
Then there was
another wave after us.
And so they lost their
very best programmers.
TONY HAWK: Desperate,
Atari licensed
the arcade classic Pac-Man and
ordered 12 million cartridges.
[BEEPING]
It sucked.
- It flickered, it
didn't look like Pac-Man,
it didn't play well, it was
hard to control, it was ugly,
it was an awful game.
TONY HAWK: And a financial
disaster, big time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Steve Ross, chief of Atari's
corporate parent, Warner
Communications, decided
to step in and he brought
one of Hollywood's biggest
talents along with him--
Steven Spielberg.
In the summer of 1982, ET was
burning up the box office,
and Ross wanted to
ride that bike too.
He paid a cool $25
million for the right
to use Steve's extra
terrestrial in a new video game,
and he promised to have
it out by Christmas.
- I think they had to develop
the game in eight weeks instead
of nine months.
It's kind of hard to
make a game be really fun
and have a lot of depth in it
in a period of a eight weeks.
- And it was so bad.
The ones that they sold,
most of them were returned.
- In '83, Atari sent diesel
trucks into the New Mexico
desert packed with unsold
cartridges and they buried
them.
- The legend was, they had
to run in and pour concrete
over them to make
them really go away.
Ugly, ugly.
I basically killed Atari.
It was the end of Atari.
TONY HAWK: By early
1983, it looked
like the home gaming boom
was going bust for everyone.
- 30 companies got a couple
million dollars in venture
capital, hired a
couple of programmers
off the street who'd
never designed games,
and developed a video
game and tried to sell it
and nobody was buying it,
because it was garbage.
It was ironic, because when
we saw those 30 new companies,
we looked at each other and
said, none of these guys
are going to be in
business a year from now.
And we didn't take
that one step further
and say, and my god, what that's
going to do to the business.
TONY HAWK: In the
next two years,
Warner Communications
dumped Atari
and got out of the industry.
Mattel shut down production
of their Intellivision system.
Coleco sales dropped
through the floor.
And in 1985, just as
everything really hit bottom,
Nintendo stood up
and said they weren't
going to take it anymore and
launched their own gaming
console--
the Nintendo Entertainment
System or NES.
Everyone thought
they were crazy.
- All of a sudden,
Nintendo came in,
better graphics, better
color, better sound.
Boom, rock and roll--
total success.
MAN: Nintendo has the
most video game hits,
like Baseball and Excite Bike.
Now, you're playing with power.
- They really brought in
a new age of video games
with the simple introduction
of the NES system.
They've rethought everything.
They said, the way a
cartridge is loaded,
the way the controllers
are designed--
they said, let's start over and
create a really friendly game
system for families to enjoy.
TONY HAWK: And who was leading
the Nintendo NES charge?
Their Donkey Kong
hero Mario, now
starring in Super Mario Bros.
- They came out with Super Mario
Bros, which was a great game--
so far beyond anything that
has existed before in he home.
It made side scrolling vivid,
and it gave you puzzles--
hidden puzzles and fun puzzles.
It characterized
what games could be.
And it was a phenomenon
all over again.
- Once that happened, it
really changed the business,
because then Sega started
looking at the business
more seriously.
TONY HAWK: Sega was
short for Service Games.
It had actually gotten its start
as an American company then
imported pinball machines
to military bases in Japan
after World War II.
But by 1986, Sega was a
Japanese company toiling away
in the arcade business.
Seeing Nintendo's
success, they came out
with their first console--
the Sega Master System.
Most of their games were
repackaged arcade titles
and couldn't compete with
the exciting originals
that Nintendo was cranking out.
It would take another
five years before Sega
would get a real shot of
pushing Nintendo and Mario
off their high latter.
- And the Japanese really took
over the video game industry,
because we had these games
that anyone could play,
anyone could understand
and everyone loves.
And they're very simple,
they're very easy to get into.
And the hardware is more
powerful than anything
we've seen from
the American side.
So these guys, they were able
to bring back video games,
like they brought it
back from the dead.
TONY HAWK: After
a five year slump,
consoles were clawing their
way back into homes only
to meet a new challenger--
the personal computer.
We can barely remember
life without them,
but in the early
'80s, these machines
were the hot new thing.
And they were about to take
video game play to a higher
level, create new competition
for gaming dollars
and give game designers
a new opportunity
to take even more power
into their own hands.
You know how some
people always seem
to be in the right
place at the right time?
Maybe it has more to do
with being ready to step up
than just dumb luck.
And the video game
industry has always
been packed with risk
takers, people who
can't wait to take their shot.
Time for another chapter
in our tale of two Steve--
Jobs and Wozniak.
Remember?
Those two guys who left Atari
to start their own thing.
By the early '80s, their Apple
2 Home Computer was a must
buy for tech heads everywhere,
at a whopping $1,300 a pop.
- I just thought
I had to have one.
I convinced my wife that I would
somehow make it pay for itself.
And we spent well
over a month's income
for the two of us buying
that first Apple 2 computer.
And well, I guess I did make
it pay for itself eventually.
TONY HAWK: Computers were
making word processing a breeze
and typewriters were being
tossed out of office windows
everywhere.
But coming out of
Atari, the two Steves
had gaming in their blood
and knew that working hard
meant playing harder.
So they made sure their
baby was built to game.
- Once you have a
PC on your desk,
you soon realize
that it's something
that you can goof off on.
And right from
the very beginning
of PCs on desktops
in the workplace,
there were games to play.
In those days-- the
mid-80s, a lot of them
were just text games like Zork.
The great thing about that
is because it was all text,
it actually kind of
looked like work.
TONY HAWK: A rival PC, the
Commodore 64 came out in 1982,
and was even more successful.
22 million machines
were sold in 1983 alone.
Well, maybe because
that one was only $600.
- When the Commodore
64 first came out,
I bought one of those
like the first day
and spent like the next month
just learning machine, trying
every last feature of it.
And then, the first
game I did actually
was on he Commodore 64.
- I would go into
the college and there
were students
programming on the Apple,
so I could ask them, how do
you get the dot on the screen.
And I'm just asking them
all the basic commands
and writing them all down and
trying to make my own programs
in the corner on the machines.
- I love playing on a computer
a lot more than a console
because, I felt like the
interaction was there.
There was a lot more fun in
actually programming things
rather than just being passive
and letting somebody else make
the game for me.
That was really when I
fell in love with games.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Back at
Apple, a young employee
named Chip Hawkins was
getting ready to pull a Steve
Jobs on Steve Jobs and
take off on his own.
- At Apple, Steve
Jobs was treating him
like a worthless MBA instead
of like the future CEO
and rockstar.
- The big idea I had
was to basically bring
a lot of practices
from Hollywood
into this new digital
medium elevating
the development of the
product to that of an art form
and treating the creative
talent as artists.
TONY HAWK: In October of 1982,
Electronic Arts was born.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- We wrote the business
plan in November '82.
And two weeks
later, Atari, which
had just shipped ET,
announced that they
weren't going to make their
revenue, or profit, targets.
And what they were
doing was they
were spending their money
on bulldozers bulldozing
all those ETs into the ground.
We though cartridge video
games we're done for ever.
So we took a big risk and
we launched and only did
floppy disk PC games.
TONY HAWK: Trip had to get
people's eyes back on gaming
and he did it by catching
their eye on the store shelves.
- I immediately gravitated
towards thinking
that the product should be
packaged like a record album.
And it was very successful
in the marketplace in that,
a lot of people really liked
those early record albums.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Trip also figured
sports stars would look great
on box covers.
Not sure why.
Maybe he ate a lot of Wheaties.
Whatever the reason, he went
after two of the biggest--
Larry Bird and
Julius Erving, better
known as Dr. J.
Each got about $25K
for a snapshot and their names.
And the doctor himself got
involved in the game design.
- We asked him questions about
how he played and strategies
and we wanted to understand
what kind of shots
he would take from
different parts of the floor
and what his shooting
percentages were.
- We exactly built
into the game.
And then we said, imagine
you're really going one on one
with Larry, what
would the outcome be.
And he goes, if I went
one-on-one with Larry,
I'd beat him every time.
Cool.
- Premiering on the Apple
2 and Commodore 64, Dr. J
and Larry Bird go one on
one was a huge seller.
Next up, football.
The tie-in, John Madden.
With a big name,
give him a big shock.
You see, in the early '80s,
technology would only allow
seven players on each team.
- Madden looked at it and he
goes, where's the other guys?
Well, this is an Apple 2
and it only has 64k of ram.
So actually having seven on
seven is a huge breakthrough.
And he just gets
the stink face--
it's like, where are the
other-- that's not football.
You can shift that if you
want, but not with my name on.
We're thinking,
he's got our money.
So I would go back to Rob
and Anthonic, the programmer
and designer, and say,
it's got to be a 11-on-11.
And he goes, that's impossible.
Two years later when the
11-on-11 game was finished,
we shipped it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: And in 1988, the
ultimate video sports game
franchise was born,
along with one
of the greatest video
marketing opportunities ever.
Like football itself,
a new version of Madden
started arriving every season
with new teams, statistics,
and players.
- And I said, this
is the crown jewel.
We're going to build
the company around this.
This is going to be a
hugely successful product.
Madden's success proofed
that sports can be very, very
good for EA, and it
has, giving birth
to a whole subdivision
within the company.
And it doesn't stop there,
from action to adventure,
from franchises to tie-in
titles, these guys are on it.
Now going for over
20 years, they
are the biggest
and most successful
publisher of video games ever.
In 2003, the revenues
topped $2.5 billion.
But hey, we're starting to
get ahead of ourselves here.
Put the brakes on and
let's rewind back in 1979.
This is Ken Williams
and his wife Roberta.
Based in LA, Ken had just
started a computer consulting
business called Online Systems.
And then, one day, he bought
his own computer along
with a computer game.
- Roberta started playing it and
she got really, really hooked.
Then after she got hooked, she
said, you know, I can do that.
And it turned out that
she could not only do it,
she could do it brilliantly.
TONY HAWK: In 1980, she
started writing her own game--
Mystery House.
- The adventure game
genre really developed
around what the
PC was capable of,
which was exploration
and storytelling.
You could type in
walk left and you
would get a description of--
OK, now you're in the field.
It was all text based.
TONY HAWK: An avid
movie lover, Roberta
loved visuals, and
insisted the game would
be more fun if there were
pictures to go along with it.
- She couldn't understand
why the hardware at the time
couldn't do the things
that she wanted done.
And so she would just say, Ed,
you've gotta make this happen.
And somehow Ken would
work on it and figure it
out some kind of thing
and make it happen.
Because of her, Ken created
this software program
that allowed them to store
hundreds of graphic screens
on one single floppy disk.
And they produced the first
adventure game for the Apple 2
that had graphics.
It
- They take these
games in a baggy
and they'd drive them
around California
about have computer
shops sell them.
And that got successful and
that became their company.
TONY HAWK: Ken and Roberta sold
80,000 copies of Mystery House.
More games started
coming, some were
originals, some adaptations
of arcade titles.
They also moved their
office out of the LA kitchen
and into a building just
outside Yosemite National Park.
Name change time too-- the
company became Sierra Online.
Then IBM knocked on
the new office door.
They wanted a game for their
new consumer machine, the PC
Junior.
Roberta came up with King's
Quest, a fantasy adventure
game filled with knights,
treasures and puzzles.
It would also let gamers
play from a third person
perspective.
Controlling and
moving a character
inside a physical world--
a first for adventure games.
- My first experience with
question was just a revelation.
It was kind of a very, very
early form of virtual reality,
that I was the main character.
And I was actually creating
the story as I went along.
I thought that was very
exciting as a storyteller
and very compelling
for me as a gamer.
TONY HAWK: Like the movie
biz, success brought
equals and a few spin-offs too.
With each game,
Roberto's vision expanded
and Ken had to think
fast to keep up with it.
- She said, well, I want color.
And he said, well, Apple
only has six colors
and they're kind of weird.
And she said, well,
make more than that.
And so he did.
She wanted sound.
So he convinced
[? Rollins ?] to produce
a mini board and a sound
card so that the PCs could
have music soundtracks.
Because with them,
the sound cards
really came into the PC world.
TONY HAWK: And like
Nintendo with Mario,
Ken and Roberta knew continuing
characters like Leisure Suit
Larry could be just as
lucrative as franchise titles.
- The first Leisure Suit Larry
King game had a very simple
plot-- you were a 39-year-old
virgin software salesman in Las
Vegas for one night and
hoping to lose your virginity.
And you can do that through a
variety of means, none of which
were very sexy or
stimulating, but we're funny.
That's what made it successful.
It was a risqué title.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Despite all of
the success that Sierra
and Electronic Arts we're
finding in the mid-80s,
their audience
still consisted of.
A highly specialized group
of tech heads and gamers
with computers becoming
an everyday part
of everyone's work and
home life, a money making
stream of potential players was
just sitting there untapped.
All someone needed
was one simple game.
It needed to be something
that anyone could play,
a game so addictive that
workers around the world
would have to cover their
computer screens when
the boss walked by.
Well, that game was
about to arrive.
In terms of global
obsession, this next game
broke all the records.
It was one of those classic--
why didn't I think of that
ideas, a game so simple,
no one in the world
could resist playing.
It was called Tetris.
And next to cocaine, It was
the most addictive substance
being passed around in
the party hardy 1980s.
And the idea came right
out of party central.
Well, make that
Communist Party central.
In 1984, Alexey
Pajitnov enough was
working at the Academy
of Science in Moscow.
Occupation-- mathematician.
His hobbies-- puzzles.
Alexey came up with Tetris
using his computer at work.
He based it on an old Russian
puzzle game called Pentomino.
- So this is original Pentomino,
which I brought from Russia.
And I had an idea to make
to play a game with this.
And let's start to program it.
And when I program it, I see--
well, in order to
put it there, you
need to flip it or rotate it.
That was the moment
when Tetris was born.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: In 1985,
the game was ready
and Alexey made his big
launch, Soviet style.
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],,
in Russian,
means that you give the
copy to your friends.
And that was like a
forest fire, you know?
In two weeks, it was on
every single PC in Moscow,
and probably in Russia.
I don't know.
TONY HAWK: And of course, Alexey
made a ton of money, retired
and he's been sitting
around sipping
Stoli in this 30-room
mansion ever since.
Yeah, right.
This was the Soviet
Union, remember?
- It was Communist
power in Russia,
so basically, at
that point, we are
agreeing that I will grant them
all my rights for 10 years.
TONY HAWK: So the Communists
did what any good capitalist
would do, they sold the rights
to Tetris around the world.
It started showing up on US
computers in January of 1988.
Soon everyone was
playing, at home, at work,
on company time, personal time,
it didn't seem to matter--
the nation was transfixed.
Kids, ask your parents.
If they say they never
played Tetris, they're lying.
- Tetris is very intuitive.
Kids are very good at Tetris.
Adult people, even senior
people like these games.
Everyone would find something
for himself in this game.
TONY HAWK: Smelling
a hit, Nintendo
used Tetris to launch Gameboy,
their new handheld gaming
device.
- The very big part
of the Tetris success
is connected to Gameboy.
Somehow, this platform and this
game was born for each other.
Gameboy for Tetris sold them
the number of 30 million.
It's a pretty big number.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Not only
was the game a hit,
it helped establish the Gameboy
as a viable and popular gaming
platform that could move
software numbers that
rivaled consoles and
PCs, and continues to do
that kind of business today.
The best part of the story,
in 1996, Tetris rights
returned to Alexey.
Now, instead of Stoli, he's
sipping Starbucks in Seattle
where he works with Microsoft.
And new generations
are discovering
Tetris on a variety
of platforms,
including mobile phones.
- We collect and distribute
royalties for the game.
They are not that big
anymore, but it's still--
it's still good.
TONY HAWK: As the 1990s kicked
in, Nintendo was riding high.
Not only was the
Gameboy doing great,
but Nintendo had single-handedly
rebuilt the home console
market, leaving Atari and
the toy makers in the dust.
The NES was the leader of the
pack with their lock on hit
titles and game franchises.
Sega was also hanging in there
with their master system.
They decided it was time to
challenge Nintendo supremacy
and in 1989, Sega launched
the Genesis console.
- When the Sega
Genesis came out,
it really brought video
games to the next generation
of technical capabilities.
- Our agency created the
slogan, Genesis does when
Nintendon't, which meant,
we had a 16-bit system,
they have an 8-bit system.
It was the first
competitive position
in the video game industry in
terms of home game systems.
TONY HAWK: In the no
holds barred campaign,
Sega rolled out
their secret weapon--
a blue hedgehog called Sonic.
- They said, you know what?
This is going to be our mascot.
He's going to have
more of an attitude,
he's going to be here toward
a slightly older audience
and he's going be fast.
[INAUDIBLE] show Sonic just
like, whizzing by on his feet
and just going super
fast, while Mario is just
kind of jumping up and down.
And they really made Mario out
to be some kid's character,
while Sonic was, hey, this
is the next hottest thing.
TONY HAWK: And this sound--
MAN: Sega!
TONY HAWK: Heard at the end
of every Sega commercial,
piled on the attitude.
While Sega and Nintendo were
fighting over the home market,
gamers we're heading
back to the arcades
where the games were
more graphic and intense,
games like Street Fighter
2 and Mortal Kombat.
- Mortal Kombat is a
game where after you've
beaten your opponents, you can
put in what's called a fatality
and you can rip out their
spine and their skull
or stick your hand
into their chest
and pull out their hard or a
whole bunch of other really
grizzly little endings.
TONY HAWK: Both
Sega and Nintendo
wanted to match
the visual quality
of these intense arcade games.
Sega saw possibilities
in a new format--
the CD-ROM.
One CD could hold 320 times more
data than a console cartridge.
To you and me that's
just more gaming power.
But just as Sega began
to consider the CD-ROM,
personal computers
beat them to the punch.
In 1993, a new game designed
for the Macintosh home computer
made its debut.
- Blue pages.
TONY HAWK: It was
designed by Rand and Robin
Miller, two brothers who had
found modest success designing
children's computer games.
Working out of their garage
in Spokane, Washington,
they crafted an immersive
interactive world--
Myst.
- Typically, games start
with a game play system,
ours start with a place.
In our minds, we we're
building real places
that people could
lose themselves in.
They'd sit down in
front of their computer,
they'd turn the lights
down, turn the sound up,
and they'd forget that
they were in this world
and they would feel like
they were in that world.
The graphics in Myst
were what defined it,
because for the first time,
I think people saw stuff
on your screen that
could be mistaken
for real images of real places.
There were some
terrific constraints
like, we couldn't actually
move the pictures in real time.
So we built them very
realistic, but they were still.
Myst was the killer
app for CD, because it
allowed for this incredible
wealth of graphics
that we had really
never seen before.
A floppy disk just
couldn't handle
the size of these graphics.
TONY HAWK: Myst became
the must have game,
selling 250,000
copies in 12 months.
It stayed on computer game best
seller lists for the next three
years, selling over
4 million copies.
It also turned the Miller
brothers into a millionaires.
- I smile because I
look back and think,
when we were two stupid
brothers sitting in the garage,
we didn't have great insight.
We maybe had some good instincts
and the timing was right.
For loads of gamers, Myst
was a watershed moment,
with it's enchanting
magical graphics helping
to create a completely
immersive experience.
But the next killer
application for multimedia PC
would follow arcade games on a
much darker more brutal road.
And suddenly, the
video game industry
would find itself in
a head on collision
with the US government.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
20 years after the
awesome success of Pong,
video games had morphed
from the geeky hobby
for computer engineers to
addictive entertainment
for the masses.
And like all success
stories, the industry
soon attracted the attention
of big business and law makers.
OK, let's back up to
1981 for a second.
This is the original castle
Wolfenstein, a classic,
let's-fight-the-Nazis
computer game.
When it came to action gaming,
this was as good as it got.
But just 11 years
later, technology
would take it from this to this.
Wolfenstein 3D
was the brainchild
of id Software, a company run by
two young game designers named
John Carmack and John Romero.
Based in Texas and both
in their early 20s,
they were hardcore
gamers with a passion
for movies like
Aliens and Evil Dead
and a love for
heavy metal music.
Combine these influences
with Carmack's recent mastery
of smooth scrolling
3D graphics for the PC
and you got one of 1992's
breakout computer games,
especially when the buzz
got out about it's blood
and gore content.
- People were quite
literally blown away by it,
because they had never
seen anything like this.
And it really showed
that there could
be this whole interesting,
compelling, edgy gaming
experience on a PC that you
were able to find on consoles
or necessarily in arcades.
TONY HAWK: It was also
one of the first games
to be played to a first
person perspective.
Since you needed to shoot
a lot of people to win,
it helped coin the
video genre title--
first person shooter.
- First person shooter is
where your eyes are the monitor
basically and you get to see
your hands or your weapons
or whatever in front
of you-- so it's you.
And first person to us was
the most successful interface
that there was,
because you didn't
have to think about
anything but just what
you're doing in the game.
TONY HAWK: But the best
thing about Wolfenstein 3D
was the way it was sold.
With more and more computers
hooking up to the internet,
Carmack and Romero could take
advantage of a new distribution
system called shareware.
- Shareware was a really, really
radical concept at the time,
because what it basically
meant is that you would
be giving games away online--
portions of a game, hoping
that people got hooked.
- Here's the first third in a
trilogy that you get for free
and you leave them with a
cliffhanger and all this stuff,
so they have to
buy the other two.
- And it was like crack
basically over the internet.
TONY HAWK: And a
lot of people got
hooked on Wolfenstein's
hardcore style.
18 months later,
Carmack and Romero
gave them their next fix.
The game was called Doom.
- December 10 of 1993
when we released Doom,
we'd been up for about 30
hours before that working.
- Id was trying to
get this uploaded,
but there were so many
people waiting online
that id could not
get in to upload it.
- And the files--
it should had been
an empty directory--
but people were putting
sentences in there
as file names.
They're making, when
will it be here?
And hurry up and stuff.
It's like a whole directory
full of sentences.
And we're just like,
these people are insane.
- What id had to do was to tell
everybody to just back off,
don't come on for a few minutes
while they upload the game.
TONY HAWK: When it came to
graphic action and intensity,
Doom pushed it farther
than Wolfenstein
and was an even bigger success.
- My most seminal
gaming experience
was playing Doom
with my headphones
on late at night with my
wife asleep in the other room
and being really terrified.
And feeling stupid
for being terrified,
but still being terrified.
TONY HAWK: The other thing that
made Doom appealing to gamers
was its multi-player
capabilities.
- Go, go, go.
TONY HAWK: Network a
few computers together
and you could start
shooting at your buddies
inside the same game.
MAN: Here they come.
Here they come.
TONY HAWK: Carmack and Romero
called it death matching.
- But through all
of pretty much 1994,
I was just addicted
to death match.
It was just the
coolest thing I'd ever
experienced my entire life.
TONY HAWK: For two young guys in
their 20s, the success of Doom
was a dream come true.
Practically overnight,
the id software founders
had become multimillionaires.
- I totally had fun
buying fun cars and houses
and all that kind of stuff.
- Romero with show up
at gaming conventions
and there would be people
literally bowing at his feet
and doing the Wayne's World--
I'm not worthy.
They really were the
rock stars at that time.
And then, when all
of the controversy
came out for violent
games, then they
had all that too to kind
of stoke their image.
TONY HAWK: In the year
leading up to Doom's release,
violent video games had become
headline news makers, but not
in a good way.
Popularity of games
like Street Fighter 2
and Mortal Kombat among
young children and teenagers
had parents and
lawmakers blaming
video games for everything,
from unfinished homework
to antisocial behavior
and rising street crime.
In late 1993, the
issue was picked up
by Connecticut Senator
Joseph Lieberman
who formed a Senate committee
to investigate video game
violence.
- We're not talking about
Pac-Man or Space Invaders
anymore.
We're talking about video games
that too often glorify violence
and teach children to enjoy
inflicting the most gruesome
forms of cruelty imaginable.
We are calling on the
video game industry
today to recognize its
responsibility to the parents
and children of this country.
TONY HAWK: Lieberman's Senate
committee wagged their finger
at the uncensored
version of Mortal Kombat
and an obscure game
called Night Trap.
- In the game, you
play a guy who's
trying to protect a house
full of sorority girls that
are being attacked by these
fledgling vampires, who
apparently don't have fangs
yet so they use this drill
contraption that hooks up to the
neck and sucks their blood out.
The game wasn't
selling, it wasn't fun,
it was a silly game.
TONY HAWK: Lieberman called
a gratuitous and offensive
and ought not to be available
to people in our society.
His comments turned Night Trap
into one of the biggest selling
games of the year.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The result of the
government hearing
was that all major
game producers
agreed to set up the
Entertainment Software Rating
Board to rate games.
Violence didn't go away, but
now it came with a warning.
- I was actually a key proponent
in the creation of the rating
system for video games.
So I'm a big believer
in honest packaging
and providing consumers
with all the information
they need to make a
good product decision
and to know what
they're getting.
- If you don't let your
kids see r-rated movies,
you shouldn't let your
kids play m-rated games.
And once that becomes more
ingrained in American culture
in everyone's minds, then
the whole violence issue
in video games will
become less of an issue.
TONY HAWK: With the
government battle behind them,
Sega and Nintendo were now free
to start beating each other up
in the marketplace again.
Sega fired the first volley
by announcing their plan
to launch a new
home system called
the Saturn, which would
operate exclusively
from a CD-ROM drive.
- Nintendo said, well, if
they're going to do it,
we've got to do it.
So Nintendo partnered
with Sony and they
created a CD player
for the Super Nintendo
called the PlayStation.
Only then, Nintendo
decided, you know what,
we don't trust Sony very much.
And they partnered
up with Phillips.
They left Sony
standing at the altar.
TONY HAWK: And as anyone who's
been left at the altar knows,
revenge can be sweet.
Nintendo's and Phillip's
plans for a CD-ROM system
began to fall apart and
consumer electronics giant Sony
decided they could make it
in the video game industry
all by themselves.
- They kept the name
PlayStation, which I think
was a real thumbing of
the nose at Nintendo.
- Everybody knows
Sony is a company that
makes Walkmans and electronics.
And then gradually,
over time, consumers
have accepted that Sony
represents really good quality
stuff.
It was a natural progression.
And then with the PlayStation,
they just dropped the bomb
and it was incredibly.
TONY HAWK: The Sony
PlayStation hit the shelves
in September, 1995
and immediately left
Sega's new system, the
Saturn, in the dust.
- Technologically, you could
tell that the Saturn way
behind the PlayStation.
The PlayStation handled 3D.
All of a sudden, there
was no competition,
because here's Sony,
they've got a better unit,
the unit is $100 cheaper and
they've got all the games.
You can't compete with
something like that.
TONY HAWK: Especially
when Lara Croft
was playing on their team.
- Thank you.
TONY HAWK: When Tomb Raider
first came out in 1996,
it was only available
for the PlayStation.
- You had not only a female lead
character, but a sexy one, who
had big boobs and short shorts.
She became really popular and
the game itself was incredible.
So Tomb Raider was
one of the key games
that helped make PlayStation.
TONY HAWK: Two of
the other games
that helped push the
PlayStation to success
were a fighting game called
Tekken and Crash Bandicoot.
Crash did for Sony
when Mario and Sonic
had done for their competitors.
And the character became sort
of an unofficial PlayStation
mascot.
Sega just couldn't compete
with the might of Sony.
In 1999, Sega launched another
console, the Dreamcast.
It bombed.
Sega quietly dropped out
of the console market
to concentrate on
game development.
Sony planned to follow
up the PlayStation
with the PlayStation
2, which would
be more of a multimedia machine,
able to play CD music and DVD
movies.
But just when it
looked like Nintendo
would be the only
competition, a Seattle
based company decided it was
time to get into the business.
Oh, and that company was just
about the biggest in the US--
Microsoft.
- There are a lot
of people saying,
Sony is going to
replace the PC with PS2.
It occurred to me that the
only way to really counter
that would be to make
a dedicated device,
to make your game console.
TONY HAWK: But Microsoft
was all about software
and had trouble convincing
people in the game business
that they knew what
they were doing.
- And we had about six months
of not being taken seriously,
because I would show up or
some other guys would show up
and say, hey, we're
from Microsoft.
We're making a game console
that will compete with Sony now.
That's a hard thing to say.
That's like saying, we're
from the government,
we're here to help.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: But it turned
out that Microsoft
did know what they were doing.
CROWD: 4, 3, 2, 1.
[CHEERING]
TONY HAWK: They even
got the hardware was
useless without killer games.
When the software giant
released the Xbox in 2001,
they had an exclusive on
first person shooter--
Halo.
- You look at that
successful console launches
and you'll see,
the console becomes
a player for the popular game.
The Xbox became the Halo player.
Yes, this black device with the
green circle on it plays Halo.
- Halo was a big hit,
because the critics loved it,
then the hardcore gamers
really picked up on it,
and then word of mouth spread.
TONY HAWK: Microsoft might
have established their gaming
credentials, but along with
Nintendo's new mini-disc
system--
the Game Cube-- the Xbox
was still chasing the market
leader--
Sony's PlayStation 2.
Now, some of the biggest
multimedia corporations
in the world were gaining
control of the video game
industry.
Real proof that there
were big bucks to be made
and that video games were now a
major part of the entertainment
business.
And as entertainers,
the game designers
would have to keep
the hits coming.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Games today have gone way
past the run, jump and shoot
basics of the early titles.
Instead of blowing up aliens
and aiming for high scores,
gamers are looking for a
more realistic, immersive and
open-ended experience.
And the gaming audience
is changing too.
Boys, girls, men, women--
they're all getting
into games big time.
Whether it's attempting to
cubed a 900 on a skateboard
from the safety of
your couch, or deciding
how much to tax the residents
of your very own virtual city.
Back in the late '80s, Will
Wright, a young programmer
and hardcore gamer
was fascinated by how
cities and societies work.
Urban planning might not
sound like the next hot thing
in entertainment,
but Will thought
it was a great idea for a game.
- Well, Sim City
was basically a game
where you're designing a city.
It's almost like a
paint program in a way--
you have a pallet of parts,
but the parts in this case
are things like roads or
industrial zones or schools.
And as you paint, things happen.
People start building houses,
traffic appears on the roads,
there's pollution,
there's crime.
So we released in '89.
It was a very different
sort of game at the time.
At that time, still most games
were very action oriented,
very clear goals.
And at first, we were having
a hard time getting anybody
to even play it.
TONY HAWK: Until a
rave review in Newsweek
put Sim City on the map
and sent sales of the game
through the roof.
And a new gaming
franchise was born.
But the big payday came when
Will applied his simulation
concepts to the human form.
When the Sims debuted
in February of 2000,
players can now build
simulations of actual people
and run their lives.
- It's effectively
a dollhouse where
you get to a virtual life.
And it's really fun to play.
I think it's one of the most
innovative games ever made.
- The Sims is one of the
games that my daughter
will play, it's one of the
games that my wife will play.
Sims is one that they're
immediately drawn to.
TONY HAWK: Will Wright wasn't
the only one giving gamers
the power to build
their own world.
5,000 miles east of Silicon
Valley, in England to be exact,
British designer
Peter Molyneux also
had a new take on game play.
- Instead of playing
a hero, or instead
of playing a character, or
a plumber, or a hedgehog,
why don't you play a god.
That's the most powerful thing
that you could possibly be.
TONY HAWK: Molyneux's
game, Populace
sold over 4 million
copies and gave birth
to a new genre, the god game.
- Rather than actually
controlling a single character
with your godly
powers, your influence
lots of little characters.
- Just as when you
were little kids
and you were setting
up your GI Joe's
in the sandbox or
whatever, you're
doing the same thing now,
but with digital toys.
TONY HAWK: If some gamers
got juiced being God,
others wanted to get
their kicks by playing
with a bunch of friends inside
the virtual world of a game.
When the internet
exploded in the '90s,
technology was able to
deliver their fantasy.
One of the first games to
really hook into the concept
was Carmack and Romero's 1996
follow up to Doom, Quake.
- Quake enabled 16 people
to play over the internet.
And that really
just blew it open.
There started to
be teams of gamers
and they called
themselves clans.
- All right, go.
- Go now.
- I just wake up in
the morning and can't
wait to go hope on the
game and see who's there
or say hi or pop in
and go kill people.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Not
exactly the usual way
to win friends and
influence people.
Within months of Quake's
release, some of the clans
decided to have a get together,
so they can meet face to face.
- QuakeCon is really
a grassroots event.
It was about 50 guys that
wanted to get together,
because they met online,
and thought, well,
we'll just do it in Texas.
And it just grew.
- This has become
a yearly vacation.
It's my time to just
have fun, stay up late,
sleep late, meet people
I play against online.
- We're in a senior
gaming league
and we have our own competition.
Anyone over the
age of 35 can play.
I just have fun.
- We came out here to meet our
fellow teammates that we play
on-- it's NADs--
North American Destroyers.
And our NADs set up a group
for the younger children.
We call them NITs--
NADS In Training.
TONY HAWK: Seven years on
from their first fan fest,
QuakeCon attracts over
5,000 players every summer.
Texas in August, they've
got to love Quake.
It seemed people
couldn't get enough
of playing in big groups.
So game designers started
coming up with games
that thousands of computer
gamers could play online.
- But when you go from 16 or
8 or 32 people to thousands,
it's massively multi-player.
A massively multi-player
game is where
you are running
the game on your PC
and thousands of other people
are connecting to the server.
And that connection is allowing
you to interact with the game
and communicate with others.
TONY HAWK: Hot titles included
Ultima Online, Lineage
and Everquest-- the
brainchild of John Smedley.
In 1999, he persuaded Sony to
create a whole new customer
service online so that 30,000
people could play at once.
- We make a world for
people to play in.
On Everquest, we
have a 60 person team
that does nothing but make
this world unique every day.
So when they come into work,
they're changing creatures,
they're adding new
quests, they're
looking at what the players
have done and saying,
OK, that's a little too easy
for them, let's tweak that,
or maybe that's too hard.
- There are dragons and
orcs and fairies and giants
and all sorts of creatures.
And it's supposed to be a
virtual world to the extent
that, whether you're logged on
or not, the world keeps going.
TONY HAWK: So much for the
stereotype of a nerdy gamer
playing on his own.
Now gamers, including
women, were joining forces
to take on the
challenges of Everquest.
- Women are really into
forming relationships.
And so women do go
to these worlds.
You often find that they
become community leaders.
They become the center
of a social group.
TONY HAWK: Soon millions
of computer gamers
around the world we're
logging on to massively
multi-player games.
PlayStation and Xbox jumped
on the bandwagon in 2002
when they made the
latest versions
of their consoles
internet friendly.
- The console online
scheme is really
just a response to the PC.
They're looking at what's
happening on the PC
and saying, well,
we can do that too.
- If the game is entertaining
and you put it online
and it's entertaining
online, then it's awesome.
It's entertainment squared.
If it's a bad game
and you put it online,
you're just spreading the misery
around in a more efficient way.
TONY HAWK: You probably
won't believe it
when we tell you this, but not
everyone plays games for fun.
Remember how back
in 1980, the US Army
ordered a special
version of Battlezone
from Atari to train the troops?
The Marines even had
their own version of Doom
in 1994 to teach
teamwork skills.
21st century army recruits
are tech savvy and into video
games big time.
So it made sense
for the military
to tap into all that expertise.
- With these kids playing
13 hours, 20 hours a week--
video games--
these thumbs are very
agile, they know joysticks,
they know triggers.
And they said, let's just
make our interfaces like that
and we're already
over the first hurdle
in getting them to kind of feel
comfortable in these systems.
TONY HAWK: In 2002,
the army gave away
a game called America's
Army to the American public.
Intended to test wannabe GIs,
it turned into a smash hit.
Then they drafted
Pandemic Studios
onto a top secret project.
They wanted a game that would
get recruits ready for combat
without putting them at risk.
Full Spectrum Warrior.
- It's not a war
game where you are
running around and
celebrating the fact
that you're killing people.
Your goal is to advance
to a certain location
or secure something to make
sure your men are safe.
It's a very different take
on other military games.
TONY HAWK: The army
also had a plan
to create a retail version
of Full Spectrum Warrior.
Of course, the GI Joe
game needed a few tweaks
to make it play for
a general public.
- The army product was made for
sergeants who are already fully
trained, years of experience.
We couldn't make that assumption
with the average game player.
So it's up to us to teach as
you play all of the Army tactics
that the soldiers had
spent years learning.
- It's a design challenge,
because we're moving away
from the sim into the
purely entertainment
aspect of the game.
So we were trying to
find creative ways
to keep it authentic, but
also keep the pace going.
Keep you moving forward, get
the action level up a bit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Playing
the commercial version
might just be one of
the best recruiting
tools the Army could dream up.
- Video games actively improve
your hand eye coordination
and can train you
directly in things that
are relevant to the military.
They're planting those
seeds in your head
when you're really young--
hey, you want to
be a super soldier,
or to play games-- the
Army is the place to go.
TONY HAWK: It's pretty ironic
that the same government that
a few years ago
hammered the video game
industry for
damaging young minds
and is now using the same
tools to hook and train
their raw recruits.
The video game industry is
still full of surprises.
And now the biggest surprises
are not just the games
themselves, but who's playing,
how many billions of dollars
are involved and who wants
to be part of the action.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So video games have been
with us since the 1970s,
moving from arcades
to home consoles
to handhelds and cell
phones like this.
They've become
essential entertainment
for a whole generation.
And with gross revenues of
over $20 billion a year,
the video game industry
is making more money
than the movie business.
But they also continue to be a
lightning rod for controversy.
Anytime there's
trouble in society,
video games still get a
big chunk of the blame.
In 1999, two students went
on a horrific shooting spree
at their school and Columbine.
And as society
searched for a reason,
people began to
blame video games.
- There was a videotape,
much later I think,
released of Eric Harris
talking about how
shooting up a high school saying
it would be just like Doom.
And the press ran with it.
- They just said,
you know what, this
is bad for America's morality.
It's corrupting kids
and it's causing kids
to do all sorts of bad
things, when there's
quite a bunch of problems making
kids do bad things nowadays.
- There's no correlation between
video games and human violence.
Human violence has
always been with us.
We're in a society
where politicians
and the special interest
groups pick on the new media.
It just underscores the fact
that it's not about video games
at all.
TONY HAWK: And
with recent titles
like Max Pain and the
Grand Theft Auto series,
the controversy continues.
Who knows if it will ever end.
In 2004, 145 million Americans
are playing video games.
That's more than half of us.
And they're not all
lonely teenage kids
sitting in a dark room
playing for hours on end.
- People still have this idea,
particularly in the United
States, that games are something
for a 14-year-old skater
criminals to do to avoid
doing their homework.
And when you point out that the
middle of our demographic is
the 26-year-old with a
lot of expendable income--
is probably professional--
they just refuse to believe it.
- The female gaming
population is actually
the quickest growing segment
of the video game business.
- Almost every girl my age
has played a game in her life
and would not call
herself a gamer, but is.
TONY HAWK: Now 28% of
video gamers are women.
And for PC players, the
numbers are even higher--
41%.
With such a diverse
audience, the industry
has to use every available
resource to keep them hooked.
Thanks to the mega processing
power of 21st century
computers, programmers
have been able to develop
artificial intelligence,
which means
that non-player
characters in games
can apparently think
for themselves.
- What artificial
intelligence should do
is look at what you, a player,
enjoy, and what you, a player,
doesn't enjoy and adapt
the game accordingly.
Not only adapt
the challenges you
face, the opponents you face,
but adapt the storyline,
adapt the world itself.
Yes, ultimately, we could
all be playing the same game,
but having a completely
different experience.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TONY HAWK: Sports
games are still huge,
and they've kept up with the
explosion of action sports
like snowboarding and
BMX and a little thing
called skateboarding.
And there's some games here
I can really recommend.
In the latest one called
Tony Hawks Underground,
you could email a picture of
yourself to Neversoft, download
from their server, you match
up the points to your face
and you're in the game.
It's pretty cool
if I say so myself.
- Whoa, not bad.
Where are you from?
- I came all the way down from
New Jersey for the Tampa Am.
- Talk about a
surprise attack, if you
stay on your board
tomorrow, you'll
walk away with the contest.
TONY HAWK: Another method
of customizing games
has been around since the early
'90s when John Carmack and John
Romero put out software
that let gamers make
their own versions of Doom.
Just like hot rodders
personalizing their cars,
gamers could now
modify or mod Doom,
bringing the gaming experience
to a new and even more personal
level.
MAN: Game over man.
- I put out all the
information out there
for how the sectors
and line segments
and everything was organized.
So everyone had the information,
they could write tools for.
And that was the start
of the whole mod scene.
- Doom spawned
this whole culture
of mod making, which
was incredibly far
reaching and important,
because it was really
weaning the next generation
of game developers.
TONY HAWK: Check it out,
the next wave of designers
can even go to school to learn
how to create video games.
- For me, game design is design
field, like architecture.
It should have courses,
departments, whole schools
dedicated to it.
TONY HAWK: At schools like
USC and the DigiPen Institute
of Technology in Seattle,
a degree in game design
is more than just a
workout for the thumbs.
- We want to teach
people how to be
critical thinkers
about this rich medium
that there isn't historically a
lot of academic grounding too.
- We have the Faculty of Science
and the Faculty of Fine Arts.
You may not have bargained
for so much math.
You may not have bargained
for so much physics.
You thought that if
you played video games,
you were going to be good at it.
- Having more game related
studies in the university
context is part of
what needs to happen
for games to become a more
mature pop cultural medium.
TONY HAWK: But
future graduates will
have to be pretty
determined, because none
of the video pioneers are
going away anytime soon.
After 30 years in the business,
Atari founder Nolan Bushnell
is still coming up with ideas.
His latest is called
uWink Inc, touch
screen coin-operated games.
- We're generally
in adult locations.
Simple games, a little bit
Atari-esk, if you would.
Games that are well produced
and operate for adults.
You can sit down, you
play for a few minutes
and have a good time.
TONY HAWK: And Nolan's
first company, Atari,
has changed hands a few
times and hit rock bottom
more than once, but
they've stormed back
with a slew of hit games like
Enter The Matrix and Unreal
Tournament.
The rock star designers are
also looking at new ways
to deliver great games to us.
Everyone's got a
cell phone, right?
With a cell phone, you can play
video games anytime, anywhere.
- Even though the
handset may not
have a lot of
computing power itself,
it's connected to an incredibly
vast computer network.
- I saw that now mobile
devices like PDAs
had the power to actually
play games well on them.
That's always kind of going
in the back of my mind
is, how can I do something else
that I think would be a killer
app for this new platform.
TONY HAWK: With all
those guys still
pushing the envelope
and new designers
joining their ranks
every day, we can't even
imagine what games are going
to look like 10 years from now.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In just a few short
decades, video games
have led an
entertainment revolution.
Movies, television, they haven't
been the same since video games
arrived on the scene.
- There's a perception
in the game industry
that games are in their infancy.
We've achieved a
lot, but we're far
from where it's going to be.
- And more than that, they
continue to massively impact
every aspect of our culture,
influencing everything
from education to the military.
- People really do
wonder, how can we play
that damn thing for 40 hours?
I mean, think about
40 hours a game.
It must be deep, it must
be doing something for you.
So the emotional experience we
have with games is something
everybody can have with games.
- As the debate over their
violence and addictiveness
rages on, video
games also continue
to drive the leading edge
of computer technology,
opening players minds to
new concepts of strategy
and tactical thinking
and capturing
the attention of the world
in bold and unexpected ways.
- In the next 20
years, the person
who is in the White
House will have
played Super Mario Brothers.
And what will that
mean for the way
that they think about
policy or the way
they think about resource
distribution or the way
they think about
problem solving.
- People in their 30s who
grew up playing this stuff
are now paying attention to it.
And we don't think
twice about it.
And we don't think these
games are just for kids.
We don't think these games are
destroying the fabric of youth.
For us, it's just like
music, it's just like TV,
is just like film.
It's part of life.
- And thanks to the vision
of the guys behind the games,
there's a limit to where
they'll take us in the future.
The video invasion
is just beginning.
[OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING]
WOMAN: GSN.
GSN.