The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2: Nin

A satisfying history of video games in (mostly) the first decade of the 21st century
Having enjoyed his first volume (finished this year) I was thrilled to see that he was releasing a volume 2 focusing solely on video games in the 21st century because that account has been lacking. Going forward I hope that video game historians start their history of video games at the turn of the century because that point in time is the genesis of video games as we know them today in the age of Web 2.0, online multiplayer and cloud storage.It’s mostly a history of first party console and handheld manufacturers and AAA publishers, and a great one it is at that. You do find some interesting niche chapters on state of arcade gaming, the competition between EA and Activision for the most prevalent AAA publisher in the industry, and on the discussion of whether video games are considered ‘art’ and why film licensed games and film adaptations of games have not been successful. You’re not really going to find much detail on mobile, PC and indie games, though the author is begging for a volume 3 since he leaves off unresolved at the peak of the PS3/XBox 360/Wii era towards the end of the 10s. Hopefully he’ll fill us in on those things by then when volume 3 is released which he has confirmed that he’s working on that to my delight.Overall I enjoyed it. 5/5.

As interesting as the first, but disappointing in terms of coverage
The first 10-12% is a rehash of book one (definitely not cut-and-pasted by any means but rather repetitive if you’ve just finished the first book), and an entire tenth of the book (the second-to-last chapter) is spent on two “evil empires” in gaming. The rest pretty much focuses on the period from the end of gen 6 (Xbox/PS2/GC) through gen 7 (360/PS3/Wii).Considering that this book was published around 2020 and facts up until 2019 are presented in the text, I found it a massive disappointment to not see the Switch (2017) mentioned even once, let alone ANY mention of gen 8 (XOne/PS4/WiiU) aside from a passing quote or two.Also, there seemed to be much more of a linear-time problem with this one; there’d be momentum building through year such and such, and then the next chapter would take us back five years. The first book did this occasionally as well, but the jumps here made for a rather disjointed read from my perspective.It’s packed with interesting information, but it already feels a decade out of date.

A good but flawed follow-up to an all-time classic
Some 20 years after his seminal book, the original “The Ultimate History of Video Games”, Steven Kent has returned with volume 2. Following the same format as volume 1, the end result is good but something of a mixed bag as well.Picking up in 1996 where volume 1 left off, Kent tells the story of console releases and the people behind them. He liberally sprinkles in quotes from key players and an occasional journalist. These are entertaining and provide insights you’re not going to find just anywhere. Really good stuff. And you got almost 500 pages of that kind of material. So that’s a good thing, right?Well…There are numerous problems. First and foremost is … where are the games?!!? Oh sure, SOME games are mentioned but “The Ultimate History of Video Games” – not Video Game CONSOLES but Video Games – should have coverage of LOTS of games. Where is Assassin’s Creed? Where is Uncharted? Where the heck are all the RTS games that dominated PC gaming for several years? And on and on and on. There are TONS of key games missing here.Next is that, without stating it, the book stops with the PS3 generation – sort of. Lots of stuff is talked about from after that generation – but not the PS4 or PS5, not the Xbox One or Series S/X.Next, where are the games for mobile platforms? Kent talks about the PSP and DS but completely ignores phones. If you accept the arbitrary cutoff date of “the PS3 generation”, this is still not acceptable. The original iPhone was released less than a year after the PS3 but doesn’t exist here. Ditto for Android.Where are all the indie games? Not here.Where is Steam? Steam was introduced *3* years before the PS3 yet goes without mention here.The PSN Network was hacked in 2011 but goes unmentioned here.Speaking of PSN and its competitor, Xbox Live, the rise of online gaming is pretty much ignored here. Oh, they’re discussed but only as a feature of hardware platforms rather than the global communities they’ve become.Next, there is somehow a lot of rehashed material here. The formation of Electronic Arts and its “album cover” boxes was discussed in Volume 1 – why is it included again here? Same thing with Activision.In addition, Kent has a somewhat strange selection of sources. He’s got a lot of key players and industry insiders and then remarkably few journalists. There’s a ton of quotes from N’Gai Croal, a video game journalist I’ve never heard of previously – perhaps because he wrote for Newsweek rather than an actual video game publication. Croal is quoted over and over and over with his words being given way too much importance. Kent also makes sure to tell us what Croal’s favorite game is for no apparent reason.Finally, we get 30-some pages on movies about video games. I suppose that’s OK but seems out of place here, especially considering the huge number of, you know, GAMES that are missing.At the end of the day, Kent’s Volume 2 is a highly entertaining read that will end up frustrating almost as much as it entertains. There are just so many things ignored and missed that, unlike Volume 1, this one does not live up to its “Ultimate” title. I do recommend the book, just be forewarned.p.s. Don’t believe the “592 pages” information. The actual book ends on page 530. The acknowledgements and index take you to 562. And there’s a few pages of intro. Being very generous, there’s barely 570 pages here. Realistically, it’s more like 530.

I couldn’t put this one down. I’m doing research on the video game industry and this book was exactly what I hoped it would be and more – great behind the scenes quotes, understanding how things work behind closed doors. Industry analysts or just gamers who want to know more will love this.The only weakness is that the book is published in 2021, and it doesn’t’ cover the PS4 generation – the most important generation when the entire gaming busniess model transformed to an online model. I really wish it had been included.

NOT QUITE SO RIVERTING SEQUEL TO THE CLASSIC 1ST VOLUMEThe History of Video Games Vol. II to start with, reads like Mr. Boring suit, didn’t get on with Mr. Who cares, another corporate suit, because he did something that showed him up, and so Mr. Who cares was denied a promotion.It’s Microsoft history, makes no mention of how Gates initially found fortune by providing BASIC to every known 8 bit computer one earth. Or how he stole the O.S business from CP/M with a rip-off version.On Page 42, in the small print he talks about Gerald Larry Lawson. Wallace Kirschner and Lawrence Haskel invented the video game cartridge along with the system that would one day become the Channel F(un) in 1974. It was called RAVEN (Remote Access Video Entertainment). Lawson was involved with streamlining and fine tuning. He turned the prototype into a commercial product. Now it was called STRATOS. He repeats this on Page 533.On Page 112, it is stated that 57% of Playstation owners are 18 year old. On Page 113 this is repeated. Why? Supposedly many people helped with this book, I guess none of them did any editing. This happens repeatedly.On Page 272, we learn Jawel Karim’s “Me at the Zoo” was the first video uploaded to the most popular video hosting site. Not sure what’s that got to do with videogames.It is interesting to read on Page 308 that a reason for Xbox 360(Red Ring of Death) failure was the use of non-Lead Solder. Lead Solder, is supposedly illegal now, but when I have been doing electronics projects, Lead Solder is recommended for the long life of a joint. Non-Lead joints don’t last as long. It may not be healthy to breathe in while you actually solder through.On Page 323, we get a section of greyscale photos. It includes a comparison between the VCS game Spiderman and Marvel’s Spiderman. He seems to have a thing about movie games on the VCS more on this later.On Page 364, we learn about a “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest which was a drinking water contest that resulted in the death of the runner up candidate and the sacking of 10 Radio station Staff. They supposedly signed disclaimers, which turned out to be garbage. The family of the candidate got 16 Million(this bit is not in the book). And all because she wanted her kids to have a Wii. Apparently over drinking water is very bad for the brain because the brain does not have much room to swell. This is probably the dumbest thing I have ever come across.Around Page 400, he starts talking about the Record and Movie industry and how smaller companies were gobbled up by bigger companies until a situation was arrived at whereby there was no more format exclusive games only exclusive content within those games.Page 418 – he’s back to talking about Atari again. What is interesting about the programmers who broke away from Atari to form Activision is that from a current perspective, the games they created before leaving Atari were on the Dull and Boring side. E.g. Outlaw, Football, Video Chess and Bowling. Yet Activision created some of the best games ever released on the VCS.Page 424 – I remember Talladaga on the C64. Terrible Graphics but it had captivating gameplay. Madden Madden Madden. Why have one Sports game when you can 42? One would be too much for me. Good to see him acknowledging his error from the first book – Pele’s Soccer for the VCS was the first celebrity tie in. Populous. Ah yes the god game. Sim City. Slooow brainy games.Page 438 – we learn that every modern WW2 game can be traced back to Saving Private Ryan.Page 446 – We learn the origin of all those pretend to play guitar games started in 1996 with Parapper the rapper…. except I remember a 1987 C64 game called Street Beat. But this was about delivering demo tapes and getting people dancing. Really, these games are a variation on the 1970’s repeated colours/sound game Simon from MB, which was a rip-off of Touch Me from Atari in 1974, except it didn’t have the musical bleeps. And Like Guitar Hero it was originally an arcade game.Page 455 – We learn about Electronic Arts gobbling up every company in sight. And apparently destroying them, as the talent left. We learn about the start of pretend money in games, microtransactions, and how just like in the arcades when in certain games you could win by paying your way through the game, you could do the same with home games too. You see this everywhere now. It reminds me of how you used to get a limited version of a game as a demo for free say on a disk or tape on a magazine, and find you only have the first level and would have to buy the whole thing, in order to play more. But here you have paid for the game and apparently you need to keep paying to unlock what you thought you had paid for. I remember Electronic Arts, for Deluxe Paint on the Amiga. The go to tool graphics tool on the platform.Page 462 – We learn about the depressing death of originality in games these days, the quirky games that once came out of bedrooms and were published commercially are gone, at least for big publishers, now it’s this year’s version of the several games that just have no end of sequels, buying the same game over and over which seems completely insane. People can still do stuff like this of course for smart devices.By Page 470, we learn about mass lay offs followed by massive profit annocements. Developers who thought they were about to get a big bonus instead got the boot.Page 488, we are back to talking about Atari and E.T. It stated that no one cared about movie games, I think that could be extended to coin-op conversions too. Why else would you buy a game, and find you have photos of the coin-op on the package, yet you power it up and wonder what the connection to the photos were? Page 497, We are talking about Superman on the VCS, the first movie game, not Raiders of the lost ark as HSW says in his book..On Page 534, he talks about Ray Kassar, the man who axed all the R & D at Atari, who milked rubbish coin-op conversions to death on the ancient VCS that wasn’t fit to run them, another book called Zap! – The Rise & Fall of Atari will tell you all about how he went everywhere in a Limo. About his plush offices. And how he treated staff like rubbish. When David Crane and co, demanded more, he was told they are no different than towel designers. On another time, he told others, that they were no more important than the people packing the cartridges into boxes. Yet, the author thinks the man who ran Atari into the ground has been wrongly recorded by history. There was a lack of managerial talent at the time that had the required knowledge and skills so they had to go with what they had. Managers who had no knowledge of IT or Video Games. What happened to Atari is the result. Not that Commodore fared any better.He is always talking about the pecking order and sales figures of various consoles as if the author was commentating on a horse race. Sometimes he is not sure, but continues anyway to try and place a pecking order anyway. This stuff gets tiresome, like some one reading a spreadsheet for an accountant.The book is easy to read, but not that interesting, at times when we get quotes from launches of consoles, it may have been better to just refer the reader to the Internet to watch it. I remember the original volume as being riveting but this just seems tedious. It also seemed to be comprehensive. This volume seems to be less so, but then there are less systems to talk about so that may be a factor in this. Also, the original volume was about pioneering days, whereas now it’s all about profiteering days and endless same old same old. In every area you care to look at.The Text is double line spaced, which make it easy to read, but sometimes there is a paragraph in microscopic small print at the bottom of the page. It is a strain to read.It also goes back into territory of the original book e.g. Atari and Nolan Bushnell repeatedly. As I have pointed out above.The book gets repetitive in places, repeating information it stated earlier. It also goes on about how much money one console made in comparison to another which gets tedious and meaningless after a while.The first volume, was quite daunting in it’s size initially, and a slog to start with, until I got drawn into it. The same is true of this volume, except the drawn in stage, occurred quite late into the book.The book ends with a debate regarding if videogames can be regarded as art. Then goes on about Roger Ebert for some reason. Who didn’t think they could. And then the book goes on and on about making the case for them to be Art.