Artjoms Haleckis's Reviews > The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World

The correct title of this book should be "The Ultimately Boring History of Video Games from Boring Businessman Perspective".

The video game industry is built by dreamers for dreamers and by players for players. Almost every game is a piece of art and a technological marvel. Back in the old days, it was also a wonder. Even today games keep pushing limits, become more immersive. Behind every game, there is a person who had a vision, crazy idea, story to tell. In most cases, it's a group of people.

This book claims to capture the most important moments of this fastest-growing industry. And it succeeds during the first chapters, where the raise of first videogames is described, backed by stories of first visioners and dreamers. I really enjoyed this part of the book and learned a lot.

Then, the book turns into extremely boring story of people doing business. Company A is established. then company B is established. Then A is merged with B. Then C arises and threatens A and B. Then B goes to court. Then A goes bankrupt. Then D steals from A. Then A steals from D. Then C pays F five millions. Then E merges with A and C. Then businessman from B meets with businessman with F. And so on and so on. It's hard to imagine how it's possible to take such an exciting topic as videogames, and turn it into such a boring story, packed with ridiculous amounts of unneeded details (did you know that company B also had a sub-company B1, that also sells dolls? And that businessman J had a dinner with businessman O, and then they also had dinner during their flight?
There is almost no book time given to the real creators behind the games - designers, developers, artists. People with vision, ideas, thrive to create and explore. It's all just about boring business.

Book author claims that he is in love with videogames and that's the reason why this book exists. At the same time, the amount of words spent on actually describing games is minimal. Some of the most important ones are kinda described, but it's so obvious that the author never played them and has no clue what he is writing about. Even those that are described, are mostly being described as generic as possible.

My main concern is - who is this book written for? Anyone at least somehow close to the industry will have no joy reading this since the book is focusing on business aspects of the industry most of the time. Businessman probably can get access to a more detailed reports on "how many units company A ordered from company M for Christmas 1988". Someone who wants to get into videogames and is patient enough to finish this long book will probably decide that there are better media and things to do in this world.

I actively discourage anyone from spending time on this and instead read some really inspiring books about videogames - like "Blood, Sweat and Pixels" or "Masters of Doom". Or just read Wikipedia, since all the info that is gathered in this particular book can be found there as well in much better-compressed condition.