A Brief History of Home Video Games

A Call for Quality
Sam Hart

"No matter how much or how little you know about the video game industry, I'm sure we can all agree on two things: The industry produces way too much junk, and the industry can never realize its true potential as long as its products are regarded by the mainstream media as children's toys." - Youichi Miyaji, president of ESP and GameArts

Video games have become big business. In the twenty-four years since the world was first introduced to a gaming console, the industry has grown to rival every other entertainment manufacturer grossing more than 100 billion dollars annually worldwide. 1 During this dramatic growth, hundreds of software firms from every corner of the globe have become game exclusive producers, employing hundreds of thousands of programmers, designers, artists, and musicians. However, recent debates have put forth the notion that one very important employee has been neglected: The Writer.

In the early days of video game design programmers had mere logic switches to work with to produce a game. The evolution of the microprocessor and memory chips eventually allowed more complex games. At this point, programmers had kilobytes of memory to work with. The continuation of this evolution yielded games with increasing intricacy. Tens of Kilobytes became hundreds of kilobytes (Third/Forth Generations). Soon we had megabytes. Then the constantly lowering costs of CD-ROM production allowed compact discs to enter into the market. Now we have memory potential in the gigabytes, and many are arguing that the older programming techniques are not sufficient to fill such a capacity.

Youichi Miyaji, President of ESP (Entertainment Software Publishing) and GameArts in a recent interview conducted by GameFan magazine2 spoke on this. His argument was that too many companies are producing titles based on decisions made by corporate executives who do not play the games. Furthermore, Miyaji argues that many producers feel constricted by this environment where the finances and creative control are handled by non-gameplaying business people. (Pg 134)

Miyaji's core company, GameArts, is responsible for one of the most popular role playing series ever, the Lunar series. Lunar: The Silver Star, produced in 1992 in Japan and later reproduced in America by Working Designs, and it's 1995 sequel Lunar: The Eternal Blue, have achieved legendary status among most game players. The titles single-handedly account for more than fifty percent of the Sega CD sales in America since 19932. They are known for their complex plot, intense drama, and wonderful humor.

Yet Miyaji has not been free from the creative control of parent companies. GameArts has had several titles canceled by such companies, titles that Miyaji feels would have been hits. Recently he created ESP, for the sole purpose to put the writers and creators back into the spotlight, with the intent of producing titles of a higher quality.

I find that I agree with Mr. Miyaji. As an adult who has grown up with video games, I find that the games typically have not been able to keep pace with my maturity. This is an issue that troubles me because I do enjoy games very much, and I do not think it is merely a matter of "outgrowing" them. I think that it is time for the industry to look at its primary gaming audience, which has climbed from and average age of 7 years in 1987 to 17 years in 19963 and to begin producing appropriate titles. I have found that there are quite a few titles that offer a glimpse at the potential these games have (Lunar, Snatcher, etc.) It is obvious that the market has evolved and continues to evolve. It is time that the industry changes with it.

[ Home / Geekcomix / Mail Sam ]