How Video Games Changed the World Page #10

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relegated to appearing alongside 50 Cent as a

pop culture reference in subversive comedy shows.

# Kickin' and punchin' and blockin'

# Blockin' and kickin' all night

# Blockin' and kickin'

and turn around

# We'll be punching everything

in sight. #

PaRappa, you never return my phone

calls so now eat bullets, and lick my balls.

It is a rarity talking about games

on TV. TV doesn't often "do" games

and one of the key reasons for

that is that TV commissioners believe that

no-one wants to watch other people

playing them, which is a valid point.

Picture two dweebs playing some

baffling point-and-click strategy game,

it is not like anyone is going to

pack out a stadium to see that.

This illuminating documentary

footage depicts emotional South Korean fans

watching their idols in action.

Who are their idols?

These guys.

Sh*t-hot Starcraft players.

The Koreans are quite into

Starcraft.

A densely complex war sim, Starcraft is

basically fast-paced space chess.

Starcraft is a real-time strategy

game,

building a base

and sending soldiers to kill people

but at a pace that will

take whole years off your life.

Starcraft is interesting in that

it has emerged as the first

sort of competitive sport of gaming.

If you look at Korea, for example,

Starcraft is effectively

the national sport.

There are cable television channels

dedicated to Starcraft.

The key Starcraft pro players in

Korea are superstars,

they have fans, screaming adulation.

As you can see it evokes

unparalleled

excitement among commentators.

For a lot of people, they just

enjoy watching people that are

good at things. It is almost like

watching a virtuoso piano playing.

When you watch these guys playing

Starcraft, their fingers are a blur,

and it is kind of fascinating.

Never mind fascinating,

the Korean audience finds the game

shout-out-loud sh*t-ifying.

Shortly afterwards, the year 2000

arrived in a flurry of optimistic fireworks

and humankind wondered what majesty

the new century would behold.

It turned out the answer was

a voyeuristic reality show in

which egotists entertained the nation

by sharing a bog for six weeks.

They weren't the only housemates

entrancing millions.

The Sims in some sense is a life

simulator where you create little people,

personalities, they then

live their lives in the game.

You can create houses for them,

they can get jobs, fall in love, have kids.

Following in the footsteps of the

voyeuristic satire The Truman Show,

in which the world tuned in to watch

the mundanity of a suburban life,

The Sims tapped into our desire for

a perfect domestic existence.

It appeals to that part of you that

wants to escape into another

world and create another

version of yourself,

almost too similar to

what your real life is.

I was living on my own

when I first played The Sims and

I didn't really go for it.

I just could not see the point.

But I was playing it and it was in

the early stages of the game when you

buy a flat and I noticed there were

these little green patches on the floor

and the sound of flies near them.

I was like, "What are these?"

As the game progressed, more of

these would build up.

I thought, "How do I get rid of

them?"

I figured it out that it was

wastepaper bins.

You put wastepaper bins in each room

and those little green things

stop appearing.

I was playing the game

and I thought, "Maybe I should put

wastepaper bins in my flat."

The Sims wasn't just idle play,

it was stressful.

You have to micro-manage every

aspect of your Sims' existence,

from how many bins they had, to how

often they went to the toilet.

You had to eat healthily,

exercise loads

and generally behave

if you wanted a good life

and that good life was rigidly

defined as a well-paid job,

a smiling partner and a tidy house

full of possessions.

Maintaining all of that became

increasingly difficult.

It took the American suburban dream

and turned it into an endless

point-and-click pain in the arse.

It was meant to be

a satire of US culture

and most people didn't get that.

The promise of the game is that you

have all of these objects

and each one has little ratings.

Each object becomes a ticking time

bomb. They can break, they can

catch fire, become dysfunctional.

You find out these objects you are buying to

make yourself happy are making you miserable.

Even though The Sims' roots lay in

satirising consumerism,

it soon became a capitalist cash cow

itself, with a barrage

of distinctly un-ironic branded

spin-off packs you had to pay for.

I don't think The Sims will ever

be as popular again as it was

when it was first released

and the reason why is

because we are The Sims now, really.

Each other are The Sims.

When you look at social networks

and Facebook, you now

have that top-down

view into people's lives.

The Sims created a realistic world

but made you conform in it.

Luckily a game was about

to come along

that would let you indulge

your darker side.

On September 11 2001,

millions feared the world

was about to slide into chaos.

Weeks later a video game consisting

almost entirely of nihilistic

urban anarchy ushered in a new age

of morally blank freedom for gamers.

I love the feeling of

dropping in to what is

a pretty realistic simulation

of a working city

and then just causing havoc.

It is just sort of

perfect escapism for me.

Early incarnations of Grand Theft

Auto were somewhat primitive

and looked vaguely reminiscent of the

rebellious bedroom-coded ZX Spectrum games

that were part of its genetic code.

Despite being set in

an exaggerated version of the USA,

it was a defiantly British game

made in Scotland from murders!

Grand Theft Auto

arrived at DMA Design,

a small Scottish development team

in Dundee.

It was something their very small

team had worked on for four years

and it was thought of in the studio

as kind of the runt of the litter.

Then in came Sam and Dan Houser

who took on a publishing deal

with DMA Design.

They became kind of the producers

of the game and it changed.

So when Grand Theft Auto III

came out,

they used 3D visuals which made

the game feel more mature

but it was also much more aware

of wider cultural issues.

It had lots of cool music in it

and again there was

a sense of anarchy to it

but it was more out of control

this time.

I'm only pretending to play that.

Grand Theft Auto III

was an immense blockbuster

revolutionising a franchise

that has become one of the most

lucrative entertainment properties

in history with an influence

that stretches

beyond the world of games.

If you watch the film Drive

with Ryan Gosling.

I do not believe that film

would look the way it does

if it wasn't for Grand Theft Auto.

Lots of people say the director

essentially made

a non-interactive

version of Grand Theft Auto.

The world of Drive as depicted

in that film is very much influenced

and inspired

by Grand Theft Auto, I think.

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