Image courtesy of Deron Yamada. © 2004 DYA367.

When I thought about writing this month’s column, I thought, “How could I, a 42-year-old mother, write a column about games?” After all, I’m miles away from the demographic — male, 29. (Seriously, contrary to the fact that 39% of gamers are women, they seem to be so insignificant to this world that Intel’s new IT manager game had to be sent back to the programmers when it was discovered that you couldn’t make a female IT manager, even if you wanted to! But that’s another article.) OK, OK. Rather than gripe about my apparent genetic and temporal disadvantages, I thought I’d just look at the stuff I love about the world I live in — the world of visual effects, movies, art and technology, of course — and see where it all fits into its sister (brother?) universe of games.

To say that online, PC and console games have progressed in the last decade is a bit like saying that dinosaurs were big. Yeah, whatever. But I remember hanging out at some local bar playing Space Invaders for hours next to my friend who talked more to Pac-Man than she did to most humans. And I remember playing Dark Castle on my Mac Plus and loving it. What was that, 18 years ago or something? The sound effects were hilarious (I loved the mice, and the way the protagonist sounded when he jumped; and what about that whip crack?). Who cared that the game repeated itself, that it was in glorious black and white, and thrilling 2D? So was King Kong. OK, then came Myst: Gorgeous, haunting, a mysterious three-dimensional journey with no characters and no payoff (sorry, Myst fans). Yeah, yeah, I already told you that I’m not a huge game player; I don’t spend hours playing Half-Life, EverQuest or The Sims (though I find myself wondering how my kids’ idea of family will evolve after their hours and hours of Sims immersion). Luckily, I have very smart friends (yes, 29-35ish men and women, I may add) who are game players, and quite accomplished contributors to the game industry (as both creators and end users), so I listen to what they like and see what to bring home to my kids, though the closest we’ve come in our house to Grand Theft Auto is Simpson’s Road Rage.

Licensing titles is the norm in the gaming world. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic won multiple awards at GDC, including Game of the Year. EverQuest is not a game you’ll find the Pixel Priestess playing. Knights of the Old Republic © LucasArts. EverQuest ©1999-2003 Sony Computer Ent. America Inc.

In those dark ages, processors were slow, poly counts and physics were limited to say the least, motion capturing characters wasn’t even a dream, there was definitely no AI and the idea that artists could be part of the development process was inconceivable.

The evolution of the gaming world has been a thrilling, almost surprising ride of its own: Even the pioneers at Electronic Arts, who had already given the world the Pinball Construction Kit by the early ‘80s, could hardly imagine just how the company and others like it would dominate popular culture and the ways we interact with each other. Or that, 20 years later, they would be part of a $7 billion dollar industry, with hundreds of game companies such as Ubisoft, Sony, Rockstar, Insomniac and Blizzard, vying for a piece of the mythic 29-year-old male’s attention.

The world seems to be upended: Rather than relying on the skills and vision of primarily engineers, as was the case a mere couple of years ago, the game companies started spending all kinds of time and resources on their artists, altering the balance to artist-driven rather than technology-driven. So, now the games we play are not only cool, they’re beautiful. Look at the differences between Doom from forever ago, to the first Half-Life, to Onimusha, WarCraft or any number of today’s gorgeous games. It’s hardly surprising that so many of the great visual effects artists of the ‘80s and ‘90s are flocking to the game industry, exchanging their love of the big screen for the thrill of the small (or not so small anymore, actually).