How Video Games Changed the World Page #2

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enemy into its flagship

entertainment shows.

When Pong came out they tried to use

it as part of a live TV thing,

and I know I am not imagining this,

with Bruce Forsyth.

- Nice to see you to see you...

- Nice!

Well, what else could I say?

Bruce Forsyth had jumped ship from

BBC to ITV for a huge pay packet,

there was a huge story about that,

and ITV gave him

the whole of Saturday night.

And the competition they had,

they had people using a

voice-operated form of Pong.

I know I've seen this.

You're looking at me like I'm

hallucinating, but I have seen this.

Ladies and gentlemen, tele-tennis.

And even as a kid I was thinking,

"Wow, this really doesn't work."

In the years following Pong,

amusement arcades filled with

coin guzzling monoliths became

a common sight, but in 1978,

the success of one title

catapulted gaming out of the dark

and further into the mainstream.

This stark, bleak, humans vs aliens

fight-to-the-death quickly

hoovered up coins worldwide.

What Space Invaders did was it took

arcade machines out of those

arcades, out of bars and suddenly,

they were in restaurants

and cafes,

places where families could go.

I think it was the first

game that really did that.

It took games into the mainstream.

I can remember the first time

I saw Space Invaders.

It was at the Silver Blades

ice rink in Birmingham.

We were on a school trip,

on Thursday night,

and I remember seeing this game

and putting 10p in the slot and it

was like a revelation to me,

it was the most amazing experience.

And from then on in,

Space Invaders was my life.

You would get 40p dinner money

each day

and you could go down to the cafe

down the hill

and get beans on toast for 20p and

have two games of Space Invaders.

The pace of Space Invaders

was beautiful.

As a newb, who had never played,

you know, an arcade game before,

you could walk up, put 10p in,

and you could play for, like,

five or ten minutes

without being annihilated.

And that pace meant that it

drew people in.

It also satisfied something which

gamers seem to enjoy - attrition,

cleaning something up.

You have this block of stuff which

had to be cleared away.

It's odd, because it is something

you can never win. You clear them

up, there's a little pause

and they all come back again.

But somehow, you want to keep on

doing it.

Mastering Space Invaders became

an overriding obsession for many.

This is one of the first published

books by revered author Martin Amis.

It's Invasion Of

The Space Invaders.

A surprisingly in-depth

collection of his arcade tips with

a foreword by Steven Spielberg.

Martin Amis has since

disavowed his involvement

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