Book review: Game On! by Dustin Hansen

The twenty-fifth book I read in 2018 was Game On!: Video Game History from Pong and Pac-Man to Mario, Minecraft, and More by Dustin Hansen.  I was the last reader in the household to read this book, as the kids found it at Half-Price Books and Tommy read it after them.

Unlike Tristan Donovan's subtitle, this one has an accurate range: Hansen starts with Pong in 1972 and works his way chronologically through important, innovative and successful games, ending with Overwatch in 2016, the book's publication date.  The explanation of why I was the last in the family to read this book might lie in the confession of how many of these games I haven't played.  Pong, yes, on the Atari 2600; Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and E.T.  the Extra-Terrestrial, ditto.  I never played Zork, although I did play a later text-based game by Infocom, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Tetris, yes; Myst, yes.  Pokemon Yellow I played a few times on my nephew's GameBoy.  And Wii Sports.  That's it.  Eight out of thirty-nine "games that shaped us all," in the author's words.

While my experience with the particular games Hansen singles out obviously skews early (and Atari-centric), I have a hard time accepting the validity of any list of great video games that doesn't include Baldur's Gate.  To me, the author's list is console-heavy.  In completing his history up to the present day, he sacrifices a bit of perspective.  Will Angry Birds and Overwatch really go down in history with similar impact to Pong and Pac-Man?  Who's to say?

The text is explicitly aimed at kids -- the epilogue says that "today's gamers -- that means you, gamer -- are going to school to become the game developers of tomorrow," and a discussion of video game ratings begins to describe the content of Adults-Only-rated games and breaks off, "...well, how about we cover that when you're an adult." -- despite the author's celebration of games like Farmville expanding the definition of gamers beyond adolescence.  As such (and probably because Hansen works in the industry and doesn't want to burn bridges), the text is very rah-rah, with no negative details about anyone or anything mentioned.  For example, Toys for Bob, the studio that would eventually create Skylanders, had been focused on making video games of kids' movies, but "[m]ovie games started to get a bad reputation.  Gamers were tired of buying games based on movies they loved, only to be disappointed when the games didn't deliver the experience they expected."  Was Toys for Bob putting out uninspired, cash-grab games?  You'll never know from this book.

Tristan Donovan, of It's All a Game, has a book of his own out on video game history.  Hansen's book makes me want to read it to see some of the warts he has undoubtedly excised.