Eric wanted to rent the DVD of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, and having seen only half of it I am giving it my absolute highest possible recommendation. I had a hard time deciding on a video clip to preview here, but I settled on this one.
[flv:/Video/2008/FEB/KingOfKong.flv 448 252]
I’m not a gamer. My interest is casual. Yet I feel strongly that it is the mentality behind gaming that helped propel us into the technological age we are now in. Hippies, Science Fiction fans, comic book kids, and Rock and Roll combined to give us what we have today. It’s all due as much to cultural change as it is advancements in technology.
This photograph is from the monumentally important article “SPACE WAR: Fanatic Life and Death Among the Computer Bums,” by Stewart Brand, published in the December 7, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone. Yes, that’s right. 1972. The caption reads, “Bruce Baumgart, winner of the Five-Man Free-For-All at the First Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics, brandishing control buttons in triumph.”
I am deeply appreciative of the reality that the things we take for granted — telephones, cars, radio, TV, Web browsing — were at some point in the past merely strange ideas. We owe a great deal to the oddballs and misfits who made them possible.