Author David Kushner points out the enormous size of the video and computer game market by pointing out in 2001, Americans spent $10.8 billion on video games, video game hardware, and computer game software. That same year a smaller amount, $8.4 billion, was spent at the movie box office.
The book also looks at the reactions to the games, and the gamer's subculture, culminating in the outcry after Columbine. Since it was guns and violence that was the threat here (rather than sex) it was the Democrats who took the lead in trying to regulate the games, although many Republicans were willing to help.
Like Lennon and McCartney, the team of Carmack and Romero eventually split up. You can't blame this split on Yoko. In this case, their viewpoints and lifestyles split them up. This quote from John Carmack finishes the book, and shows his view of the hacker's or programmer's lifestyle:
In the information age, the barriers [to entry] just aren't there. The barriers are self imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don't need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers."
The more flamboyent Romero aimed for a rock star image, and he was eventually pushed out of id Software. He formed his own free-spending company, Ion Storm, which was not successful. As for id, they are putting the finishing touches on Doom III.
Article comments
1 - Half Baked
Nice review.
Another good book on the history of the video game industry from a console perspective is Game Over... by David Scheff. Its mostly about Nintendo but does touch on Atari and other early influences on the industry.
2 - Bruce Kratofil
Right after posting the review, I started reading an article on developing games in Flash -- and the article cites "The Illustrated History of Electronic Games" from McGraw-Hill, which I added to the list. So there are a number of game histories
3 - Dirk
I read this book about the same time but didn't dare to put another review on it online.
I found it a thrilling ride through the origins of today's gaming industry. While reading I had so many memories of playing Doom and tracing the makings of all sequels (John Carmack's plan files were once my bread and butter).
I know it could be all creative imagination, but this book gives you a quite decent background on HOW all those games were done and even the WHY.
A must read for any gamer.
4 - Bruce Kratofil
Dirk -
You should add a review too. Different viewpoints are good - especially a review from someone who was an avid Doom player.
I never really got into the shoot'em up games myself -- so I approached the book more like a business school prof (I was one of those in another life)