Video Game History Hour

We sit down with Jimmy Maher, author of The Digital Antiquarian, to examine his recent four part series: The Ratings Game . This series takes a look at how games came to have age ratings, why it was inevitable and necessary, and the fascinating butterfly effects that came because of it. Maher draws a very clear throughline from a United States Senate hearing controversy over violence in video game...

Felipe Pepe takes us through his collaborative, non-profit project to create a historical guide to computer role playing games: The CRPG Book: A Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games . What CRPG’s around the world are cool, interesting, historically important, popular, meaningful, and why are they so? Each entry highlights a game’s eccentricities, context of the time to better understand it, and th...

Diving into the history of the Xbox in his recent long read, Bet on Black: How Microsoft and Xbox Changed Pop Culture, Part 1 , David L. Craddock goes back to the time of JezzBall , Age of Empires , and trusty ‘ol Minesweeper : the games that kept us entertained while someone else in the house was using the phone. We discuss the import of porting Doom to show off DirectX, the PC Magazine two level...

Eric Switzer joins us to share the development and downfall of Darkwatch in his article The Untold Story Of Darkwatch . A vampiric haunted western, Darkwatch could have, in another universe, been a major franchise. But, through a series of acquisitions and mandated pivots, its storyline deadended after only one title. Will this long silent universe ever see its rebirth? Switzer gives us his exciti...

Our podcasting duo takes us back to the dawning of real-time computer games: Spacewar! Alex Smith joins us for round two, being our second second-time guest, to pairaphrase the history of this 2-player game of binary ships thrusting around a gravity-well star, who (reluctantly) wrote it, who modded it, who played it, and who created the first couple of video game controllers ever made. If necessit...

Ben Hanson returns to the show to bring us The Oral History Of PopCap Games , a not 4 hour long video in which we learn how the “colors game” spawned the casual juggernaut Bejeweled , the black sheep in the corner made all the money, the PopCap Burrito won’t give us Plants Vs Zombies on our Switches, and the final score is 3-4. Look, I know that doesn’t really make a lot of cents, but you really o...

Dr. Sparkle, the creator of Chrontendo, takes us through his more than decade long project to analyze every commercially released game for the NES and Famicom in chronological order while simultaneously spinning off this already massive show into two more: Chronsega and Chronturbo. If you’re ever looking for something to do with your free time, this guy might have some ideas for you. But, you may...

Raven Simone takes us down the research rabbit hole she fell into while making her video The Girl Games Of Lost Media - Documentary . With few clues to follow, she started researching the Mean Girls game, but soon found herself chasing down info on Clueless and Pretty in Pink as well, discovering that research can often take you in unexpected directions. Frank, Kelsey, and Raven bond over how sati...

Should Monkey Island be made into a movie? Could it be? Jack Yarwood lays out the history of how this project almost came to be as well as why it gave up the ghost, instead. He, Frank, and Kelsey cross swords over if this could have been a glorious triumph*, like Super Mario Bros.: The Movie, or a *mumble mumble mumble* , like The Watchmen. Either way, the beloved Monkey Island franchise could sti...

David Haywood, AKA Haze, discusses the MAME software preservation project: a collaborative, encyclopedic haven and emulator for all those ‘forgotten’ games of our past. In December 2020, while most of us were cowering under a table feebly awaiting the fresh start of the new year, David took a look back at the community’s accomplishments within the project over the last seven years and what still n...

Author, documentarian, artist, guest VGHF blogger, and wild west gunslinger Kate Willaert claims the title of First FMV Game for this fast draw pistol duelling simulator in her recent article Wild Gunman ‘74: The Forgotten First FMV Game and video by the same name. She’s a straight shooter as we hit topics of the effect of the oil crisis on this game and bowling alley laser clay equipment. But, do...

Musical Archeologist and Demo Stylist (professions we made up just now), The Brickster, explains how he and his colleagues collaborate to recreate music from some of our favorite retro games in a richer, uncompressed, true-to-each-instrument style. The recently viral music from Super Mario World Restored - Fortress brought this unique form of historical research, along with its potential for legal...

You and Diddy better jump inside that explosive barrel and get tossed into this minecart because we are going on a trip! This week we’re playing co-op with TWO guests at the same time. We meant to have artist Kev Bayliss and composer (not music engineer) David Wise join us to reminisce about Dinosaur Planet, as Kev did in his editorial “ I was a lead on Dinosaur Planet and this week’s leak brought...

Discussing his new book, Once Upon Atari: How I Made History by Killing an Industry , Howard Scott Warshaw takes us on a trip through his career starting with how he got to Atari (and how he almost didn’t), what he did there (including the Game That Shall Not be Named), and the amazing things he’s accomplished since. From learning that sometimes, in order to get better, you just need lots of peopl...

Documentarian Bones joins us to discuss their directorial debut Mother to Earth . We dive into the mysteries of Earth Bound, the unreleased North American version of Nintendo's JRPG Mother. Now, this is not to be confused with the Super Nintendo game, Earthbound, which is actually the sequel; we know, it's complicated. Set to release in America in the early 90’s, Earth Bound didn’t come to the US...

Journalist Liz Landau reminisces about the old days of text-based adventuring through MUDs (Multi User Dungeons) and how they’re the stepping stones to all current-day MMO’s and social media platforms from her Wired article, “ How Old-School Text Adventures Inspired Our Virtual Spaces .” Though some thought the internet was just a passing fad, others dove head first into this game, Gemstone III, t...

Damian Rogers from Japan’s Game Preservation Society joins us this week to talk about their new documentary series: Geimu. Born out of necessity during the pandemic to replace their annual in-person summer event, Geimu episodes highlight well-deserving Japanese game developers who might not normally get as much media attention. Episode one, 芸夢 [gei·mɯ] File #1 - Yūichi TOYAMA〈外山雄一〉～Pionee...

We uncover lost stories of the never released Power-Up Baseball , sometimes referred to as “MLB Jam,” with then programmer, now arcade game developer, Brian Smolik. Back in those days, Smolik lived the life only a young 25 year old could: programming and testing until 6 a.m. while riding a sugar high brought on by giant Slurpees. This breakneck paced work cycle was mirrored in the sweat inducing,...

Iain Simons from The National Videogame Museum, UK joins us to discuss their current project: Animal Crossing Diaries . We learn how the museum evolved itself into being over the years, ponder what video games mean, ask, “how do we preserve that meaning through history,” and learn how Animal Crossing may be the perfect vehicle to set that example. The call for your stories and experiences in Anima...

In his recent video, WorkBoy: Lost Game Boy Add-on FOUND After 28 Years - Game History Secrets , Liam Robertson not only found possibly the only WorkBoy left in existence, but also got it working! This version is certainly a step up from our cardboard cut-out version we had on display at PRG in 2019 (you thought it was real, didn’t you? Gotcha!) If only we had our own Fabtek WorkBoy, we could list...

THE speedrun historian and world’s fastest Mike Tyson’s Punch-out!! record holder, Summoning Salt, gives us an inside look at the niche, but expanding, world of competitive speedruns. His newest video, The History of Super Mario Bros. 2 World Records , depicts one of many yet unfinished dramatic battles for first place on the leaderboard. We learn how Summoning Salt got into researching speedruns,...

Alex Smith, author of They Create Worlds: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry, Vol. 1: 1971-1982 and fellow podcaster, joins us to discuss the North American console crash of the early 80’s: its causes, its effects, and the lessons we’ve learned since then. See more from Alex Smith: Book: https://www.routledge.com/They-Create-Worlds-The-Story-of-the-People-and...

Chicken owner and gaming historian, Kevin Bunch, joins us to share some of the lessons he’s learned by living the history of the Atari VCS by playing each game released in its chronological order. The Atari Archive gives the exact context needed to truly appreciate each game for what it really was at the time of its introduction. See more from Kevin Bunch: Twitter: @ubersaurus YouTube: /atariarchi...

Frank and Kelsey close out the year 2020 by answering your burning questions. We touch on topics of policy, found oddities, white whales, what we’ve accomplished this year, and what we’re looking forward to in the year to come. Thank you to everyone for all your support of the podcast, for sending in your questions, and for the amazing love and support shown during our winter fundraiser. Happy New...

Today’s episode features the bizarre origins of SimRefinery as well as other Sim titles which never came to be. Phil Salvador joins the Video Game History Hour to discuss a branch of Maxis, Business Simulations Division, which gives us a glimpse into a path-not-taken, alternate reality where Maxis might have only made a name for themselves in the world of business. A world where powerhouse franchi...