VGC | John – Page 2 – Video Game Canon

Nintendo Offers Up a Video Tour of the Nintendo Museum… Which Opens on October 2, 2024

It’s been three long years since Nintendo announced their desire to transform a shuttered manufacturing plant in Kyoto into a Nintendo Museum, but with a grand opening planned for this Fall, the consolemaker is finally ready to give fans a sneak peek at what’s inside.

The video tour, which has been embedded above, is hosted by Shigeru Miyamoto himself, and it actually starts on the second floor in the “Make Connections” exhibit. There, museum patrons will be able to browse Nintendo’s 135-year-history of games, toys, and playing cards. This massive display case overlooks the first floor, which will feature eight interactive play exhibits. Miyamoto shared three of those exhibits during the video.

“Ultra Machine SP” is based on an indoor pitching machine sold by Nintendo in the 60s and 70s and will let you take the plate in a replica of a typical Japanese home. “Zapper and Scope SP” gives players a Zapper or Super Scope and lets them loose on a 13-player light gun game that attempts to modernize one of Nintendo’s first moves into the video game space. And you’ll get exactly what you expect in the “Big Controller” exhibit, as two players will attempt to complete a Nintendo-themed game challenge together using an extra-large controller.

With this combination of museum gallery and interactive play-based exhibits, the Nintendo Museum seems to be very reminiscent of The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. But as with all things Nintendo, I’m sure a few surprises are still being kept under wraps.

The Nintendo Museum will open to the public on October 2, but to help control attendance, Nintendo is currently offering tickets through an online lottery. You can reserve your tickets, and learn more about the rest of the museum, at the Nintendo Museum’s official website.

David Wolinsky’s Oral History of Gamergate, “The Hivemind Swarmed”, is Now Available in Bookstores

We’re ten years out from the online harassment campaign that came to be known as “Gamergate” and I’ve still never been able to wrap my head around the idea that some people thought a torrential barrage of death and rape threats was an appropriate response to writing about video games in a way they didn’t like. The creator of the Don’t Die interview series, David Wolinsky, was similarly baffled by Gamergate, and he recently spoke to a number of “major figures in gaming, tech, media, and politics” to get the real story behind the hashtag.

Wolinsky’s The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate, the Aftermath, and the Quest for a Safer Internet is an oral history of Gamergate, but it’s also an examination into how the harassment campaign later influenced the alt-right movement:

An incisive oral history that brings together the voices of major figures in gaming, tech, media, and politics to reflect on the long shadow of Gamergate

With The Hivemind Swarmed, oral historian and documentary researcher David Wolinsky invites readers to sit in on a series of urgent, intimate conversations between some of the most distinguished voices across entertainment industries and media as they reflect on the longstanding impact of Gamergate. What went wrong, and what can we learn from Gamergate to help us build a more equitable online world?

The backstory: 10 years ago, a disgruntled software developer named Eron Gjoni posted online to accuse his ex-girlfriend, game developer Zoë Quinn, of sleeping with game critics in exchange for positive reviews. He offered no evidence to back up his claims. However, his posts were picked up by extremists in the gaming community who built a vicious online movement targeting women, minorities, and progressive voices. Rallying under the hashtag #gamergate, they sent their victims round-the-clock death and rape threats. Game companies, for the most part, declined to take action as their female employees were harassed out of their jobs. The FBI launched an investigation but found “no true threat.”

Gamergate holds the grim distinction of being the first modern online harassment campaign. It arguably served as a model for the alt-right movement that would help propel Donald Trump to the White House. And it highlighted a toxic media culture—not just in gaming, but in film, TV, journalism, and more—in which leaders, through their passivity, took the side of the oppressor. Now, 10 years later—in the wake of #MeToo, Charlottesville, the Trump years, and the January 6 insurrection—the questions discussed here are more important than ever.

The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate, the Aftermath, and the Quest for a Safer Internet was recently published by Beacon Press and it’s available in bookstores now.

“The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom” is Getting Ready to Rock in Winter 2025

Blake Hester put together a sprawling Oral History of ‘Guitar Hero’ in 2021 for Waypoint after sitting down with all the key players from Harmonix, RedOctane, and Activision.

But rather than leave the stage, Hester’s coming back for an encore with an expanded version of the original article, The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom, now in a book-length special edition package featuring die-cut tabbed pages and an amplifier-esque textured slipcase.

Altogether, he spent roughly a year tracking down and interviewing more than 30 people involved in the development of the game, the selection of the music, and the creation of all those plastic instruments. What followed was a tale worthy of the best of Behind the Music. A story of towering success followed by a crash back down to Earth… with redemption possibly existing just over the horizon.

Guitar Hero never taught anyone to play the guitar… but it sure felt like it. Game nights became head-banging parties that all your friends were invited to. As the fanbase grew, so did the setlist, with A-listers Aerosmith, Van Halen and Metallica all lending their unforgettable back catalogues. As the craze spread, so too did the play-along opportunities, with 2007’s Rock Band adding plastic drums, bass and vocals to the mix. It seemed like the party would never end… until it suddenly did.

The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is the definitive story of a game that, entirely fittingly, lived fast and died young. Building upon Blake Hester’s celebrated 2021 history of Guitar Hero for Vice, it widens its gaze to cover the evolution of the Rock Band series, from its first tentative press of the red fret button to its insane overblown crescendo of songs, hype and impossible-to-pack-into-the-loft plastic peripherals.

The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is currently seeking funding through Volume, and will be published by Read-Only Memory in Winter 2025 if it reaches its goal by July 19th.

UPDATE (7/3/24): The crowdfunding campaign for The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom has added another option for those interested in learning more about the birth (and quick death) of a new game genre. In addition to the Deluxe Edition ($80) and the Harmonix Signed Edition ($100), prospective buyers will also be able to pick a less-deluxe Standard Edition that’s been priced at $60.

John Romero’s “Doom Guy” is Getting a Documentary and a Dramatic Adaptation

If you’ve ever seen him give an interview, you know that John Romero, one of the co-founders of id Software and the co-creator of both Doom and Quake, is one of the all-time great talkers. No matter what the question is, he’ll give you a story that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

Romero’s wordsmithing was definitely one of the big reasons why his recently-published memoir, Doom Guy: Life in First Person, was so well-received by readers.

According to Deadline, the famed developer will get another chance to tell his story in an upcoming documentary adaptation of Doom Guy. The project will be directed by Rob McCallum, who is probably best known as the creator of a few other game-themed documentaries, including 2015’s Nintendo Quest.

Speaking about Doom Guy, [McCallum] said: “John Romero’s journey is the missing antidote for all of us misfit toys looking for hope and kindred spirits in the darkness of the world. It’s an unbelievable rock n’ roll, boundary-shattering, thrill ride grounded in humanity, integrity, patience and clever chess moves slathered in innocence, tenacity and pure coolness.”

In addition to the documentary, Golden Possum Productions and Naomi Harvey will produce a dramatic adaptation of Doom Guy as well. We don’t know which actor will step into Romero’s well-coifed mane, nor do we know if this adaptation is planned for cable or theaters or streaming. But hopefully it doesn’t suffer the same fate as the USA Network’s planned adaptation of David Kushner’s Masters of Doom, which fell apart shortly after it was announced in 2019.

World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024 Includes Asteroids, Myst, Resident Evil, SimCity, and Ultima

Once you see this year’s crop of inductees to the Strong Museum’s World Video Game Hall of Fame, you might be surprised that they didn’t get the call as part of an earlier vote. But less than four dozen titles have been selected to join this inner circle, so it’s also easy to see how some groundbreaking games could slip through the cracks.

And that’s where we are with the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024, which welcomed Atari’s Asteroids, Cyan’s Myst, Capcom’s Resident Evil, Maxis’s SimCity, and Richard Garriott’s Ultima into the fold during a ceremony earlier today. It’s true… but I can hear the questioning tone in your voice.

Wasn’t Asteroids the game that solidified the space shooter as the dominant style of arcade game in 1979? Yup. Didn’t Richard Garriott practically invent the RPG with Ultima? He did. Wasn’t the CD-ROM-powered Myst more popular than any other PC game in the 1990s? You got that right. And aren’t Resident Evil and SimCity beloved classics that people continue to replay every year? That’s a big yes.

The curators and researchers at the Strong Museum also filled in some gaps and had a few nice things to say about each inductee.

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2023 GOTY Scoreboard: Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake II, Tears of the Kingdom, and More

How do you even begin to talk about what happened in the video game industry in 2023?

From January all the way through to December, 2023 was one of the best years for games ever. New classics literally appeared out of nowhere, while dozens of other hotly-anticipated new releases absolutely lived up to the hype. But it was hard to celebrate last year’s triumphs without also looking back at the seemingly endless parade of developers who lost their job in 2023. Multiple times per week, we would hear about a mass layoff or studio closure at yet another company.

Farhan Noor, an artist who previously worked with Telltale and Activision, has been tracking these job losses at Game Industry Layoffs and he estimates that at least 10,500 people were laid off in 2023. The final tally is most likely quite a bit higher and things don’t seem to be slowing down as we head into 2024.

One outlet, But Why Tho?, directly confronted this grim reality by selecting “The People Who Make the Games Industry” as their “Top Video Game.” Picking the developers, artists, and writers who lost their jobs over any of the games they played in 2023, it’s hard to argue with their reasons for making this choice:

Many of the games on this list and on lists across games media were made by people who are no longer employed by the studios that developed, published, or are the owners. We saw the shuttering of not only studios but also of websites dedicated to covering video games. We can not celebrate a stacked year of fantastic games without trying to honor those who deserve to be respected as talented people who have given us hours and days of play in fantastic worlds. They matter, their futures matter, and the beauty of the video games we love so much is only possible when the developers are respected, cared for, and fought for, too.

So with that in mind, let’s take every chance we can to honor the actual people behind our favorite games, and the fabulous work they did in 2023 while mired in chaos.

Any discussion of 2023 will begin with a trio of games… Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake II, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Fans spent years waiting patiently as each game slowly moved through the development process and all three delivered (including a full sweep of the major “Game of the Year” awards for Baldur’s Gate 3).

Larian (including Director Swen Vincke, Producer David Walgrave, and a talented troupe of voice actors) first unleashed Baldur’s Gate 3 in Early Access in 2020, but the expansive RPG still seemed to come out of nowhere. Likewise, Sam Lake and Remedy had been slowly building out a sequel to Alan Wake since that game’s launch in 2010. Most of this work was done away from the public, but it likely won’t take 13 more years to get the next chapter in Alan Wake’s story.

And then there’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Eiji Aonuma and his team at Nintendo EPD poured everything they had into this Breath of the Wild sequel and redefined what a console like the Switch can offer players in its waning days. Its seemingly-limitless world mesmerized critics and players, and left other developers wondering exactly how Nintendo was able to pull it off.

But dozens of other games also competed for attention and accolades, including Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2, Capcom’s Street Fighter 6, Geometric Interactive’s Cocoon, Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Capcom’s Resident Evil 4, Tango’s Hi-Fi Rush, Square Enix’s Final Fantsasy XVI, From Software’s Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Blizzard’s Diablo IV, Mintrocket’s Dave the Diver, and on and on and on.

Even the long shadow of Wordle continued to inspire new daily browser-based games, including the time-gobbling Connections, Puzzmo, and Immaculate Grid.

Altogether, more than 25 games received some form of “Game of the Year” accolades by at least ten publications (that’s a win, a nomination, or a selection on an unranked list), and a total of more than 200 games appeared on at least one list. It was truly an historic year for video games, and you can see how it all shook out by viewing the 2023 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.

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BAFTA Games Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has presented the BAFTA Games Awards almost every year since 2003 (they skipped 2005 for some reason). “The BAFTAs” are one of the game industry’s most prestigious awards, and they’re awarded each Spring, honoring games released during the previous calendar year.

Since 2016, the BAFTA Games Awards ceremony has coincided with the London Games Festival.

A secret ballot cast by the British Academy’s membership, which includes “experienced games industry practitioners from a range of backgrounds in game development and production,” chooses the nominees and winners each year. A variety of sponsored awards are also offered by the BAFTAs, and the winners are typically decided by a public vote.

All the “Best Game” winners from the BAFTA Games Awards can be found here…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Completes the Sweep After Winning “Best Game” at 2023-2024 BAFTA Games Awards

More than The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Alan Wake II or Super Mario Bros. Wonder or any of the rest of 2023’s biggest games, it often felt like all anyone wanted to talk about last year was Baldur’s Gate 3.

The RPG’s uncanny ability to become the center of the conversation has continued throughout awards season, as it won “Game of the Year” honors at The Game Awards in December, the DICE Awards in February, and the GDC Awards in March. Could we be looking at another sweep of the major year-end awards? The first, and only, time that happened was when Sony Santa Monica’s God of War took home all the “Game of the Year” trophies in 2018.

I could try to draw the suspense out a little more… but if you saw the headline you know… the development team from Larian Studios did indeed complete their sweep at the 2023-2024 BAFTA Games Awards. Baldur’s Gate 3 was the big winner of the night, not only winning “Best Game”, but also a handful of other statuettes as well. The RPG’s tally also includes awards for “Narrative”, “Music”, “Performer in a Supporting Role” (for Andrew Wincott portrayal of Raphael, and the fan-voted “EE Players’ Choice”.

While Baldur’s Gate 3 won a lot last night, the three aforementioned games also took home a few trophies. Remedy’s Alan Wake II was honored with “Artistic Achievement” and “Audio Achievement” awards. Playing together was at the heart of Super Mario Bros. Wonder‘s victories for “Family” and “Multiplayer”. And The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom took home yet another “Technical Achievement” award at this year’s BAFTA Games Awards.

Comedian Phil Wang led the ceremony in London last night, but the membership of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts also decided to reveal the competition’s Longlist for the first time. Focusing on the “overwhelming proof of the tremendous creative talent prevalent across the industry”, the 60 titles chosen provide a great overview for one of the best years for video games ever.

You can view a replay of the ceremony after the break, along with a complete list of all the nominees and winners from this 20th edition of the BAFTA Games Awards.

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MIT Press Will Add “Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy” to its Platform Studies Series on May 14

MIT Press‘s long-running Platform Studies series has used an academic lens to explore the technical aspects and cultural impact of a diverse array of video game consoles since it began in 2012. But after covering successful platforms such as the NES, the Super NES, the Wii, and the Atari 2600, the next book in the series will definitely surprise a few readers.

Jose Zagal and Benj Edwards have made the unconventional choice to focus on… wait for it… the Virtual Boy in Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy. More than just an infamous failure, the Virtual Boy offered a unique experience that still has people talking about it today:

With glowing red stereoscopic 3D graphics, the Virtual Boy cast a prophetic hue: Shortly after its release in 1995, Nintendo’s balance sheet for the product was “in the red” as well. Of all the innovative long shots the game industry has witnessed over the years, perhaps the most infamous and least understood was the Virtual Boy. Why the Virtual Boy failed, and where it succeeded, are questions that video game experts Jose Zagal and Benj Edwards explore in Seeing Red, but even more interesting to the authors is what the platform actually was: what it promised, how it worked, and where it fits into the story of gaming.

Nintendo released the Virtual Boy as a standalone table-top device in 1995—and quickly discontinued it after lackluster sales and a lukewarm critical reception. In Seeing Red, Zagal and Edwards examine the device’s technical capabilities, its games, and the cultural context in the US in the 1990s when Nintendo developed and released the unusual console. The Virtual Boy, in their account, built upon and extended an often-forgotten historical tradition of immersive layered dioramas going back 100 years that was largely unexplored in video games at the time. The authors also show how the platform’s library of games conveyed a distinct visual aesthetic style that has not been significantly explored since the Virtual Boy’s release, having been superseded by polygonal 3D graphics. The platform’s meaning, they contend, lies as much in its design and technical capabilities and affordances as it does in an audience’s perception of those capabilities.

Offering rare insight into how we think about video game platforms, Seeing Red illustrates where perception and context come, quite literally, into play.

Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy will be available in bookstores on May 14.

GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today

Chris Crawford opened the doors to the very first Computer Game Developers Conference after welcoming two dozen other developers into his living room in 1988. The annual gathering has grown considerably in the years since (including being rechristened the Game Developers Conference in 1999), though Crawford bowed out of organizing the event in 1994.

UBM TechWeb, a company that specialized in trade shows and conferences, took over organizing the Game Developers Conference in the 1990s and they launched the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDC Awards) in 2001. Informa Tech, a British publishing company, took over as the organizer of the Game Developers Conference in 2020.

The GDC Awards are awarded every Spring at the Game Developers Conference, and both the nominees and the winners are selected by a group of “leading game creators from all parts of the industry.” Membership in this panel, which is known as the International Choice Awards Network, is available by invitation-only.

Before the creation of the GDC Awards, the Game Developers Conference hosted the Spotlight Awards from 1997 through 1999.

All the “Game of the Year” winners from the GDC Awards and the Spotlight Awards can be found here…

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