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Publisher's Summary

Through the stories of gaming's greatest innovations and most-beloved creations, journalist Harold Goldberg captures the creativity, controversy - and passion - behind the videogame's meteoric rise to the top of the pop-culture pantheon.
Over the last 50 years, video games have grown from curiosities to fads to trends to one of the world's most popular forms of mass entertainment. But as the gaming industry grows in numerous directions, and everyone talks about the advance of the moment, few explore and seek to understand the forces behind this profound evolution. How did we get from Space Invaders to Grand Theft Auto? How exactly did gaming become a $50 billion industry and a dominant pop culture form? What are the stories, the people, the innovations, and the fascinations behind this incredible growth?
Through extensive interviews with gaming's greatest innovators, both its icons and those unfairly forgotten by history, All Your Base Are Belong to Us sets out to answer these questions, exposing the creativity, odd theories - and passion - behind the 21st century's fastest-growing medium.
Go inside the creation of:



Grand Theft Auto
World of Warcraft
Bioshock
King's Quest
Bejeweled
Madden Football
Super Mario Brothers
Myst
Pong
Donkey Kong
Crash Bandicoot
The 7th Guest
Tetris
Shadow Complex
Everquest
The Sims
And many more!

©2011 Harold Goldberg (P)2015 Harold Goldberg
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful
4 out of 5 stars
By Kristi on 02-21-17

Some noticable flaws and incorrect information.

Pretty good but got noticable things wrong including calling the twisted metal clown calypso in stead of Sweet Tooth which is the characters name. Also it states that from the get go the Xbox 360 had simple wifi connection when in reality, the first generation required a separate add on to access wifi. The last issue was small but he mistook the name of South Park's character Kyle for Lyle. Proofreading is important.

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2 of 2 people found this review helpful

3 out of 5 stars
By Brandon on 05-06-16

A History of Game Developers, Not Games

The book's title is somewhat misleading. Instead of an exploration of the effects that video games have had on pop culture, it reads much more like a collection of short scattered biographies of the men and women that made them, often spending far more time on the childhood and business practices of developers than the games that they created. Although the information provided is interesting, the writing becomes dull after the repetitive use of certain phrases and devices. The book also suffers from horrible organization, mentioning Nintendo in the 80's, EA in the 90's, then jumping back to Sierra in the 70's, and then to Nintendo again in the 2000's.

It's obvious that the book could not be completely comprehensive of video game history, but for a book claiming to be about the effects on pop culture it has some very odd entries and omissions. The author praises "Crash Bandicoot" for it's soundtrack but never mentions Koji Kondo or his compositions for the Mario and Zelda series's, which are arguably the most recognizable soundtracks of all time. The creation of the failed 3DO gaming console gets its own entry, yet Sega's long history is barely a footnote used for comparison to a few other companies. Pokemon, the third highest selling franchise of all time, that has spawned card games, 19 movies, a tv show about to start its 20th season, comics, physical stores, and it's own theme park, doesn't even warrant a mention in this title. Even "Zero Wing", the game this book gets it's title from is only briefly mentioned in the introduction.

A few times in the book, notably "World of Warcraft" and "Bio-shock", Goldberg does describe games with passion, and delves into the emotions a game made him feel, and descries why he finds them special. These parts are the most enjoyable, and made me want to replay those titles. I think that the book would have been much more successful if instead of writing so broadly about video games, Goldberg had gone deeper with a select company that he was passionate about.

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1 of 1 people found this review helpful

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Customer Reviews

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4 out of 5 stars
By Dominic on 02-04-16

Worth a listen

Interesting book, well read. A little disjointed as the chapters would start at different points in time. There is a lot of subject matter that could have also been included that wasn't such as the origins of the fps but overall the book was a nice length.

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1 of 1 people found this review helpful

5 out of 5 stars
By Paul on 06-03-17

An interesting history that i was part of.

If you have been a hard core gamer, or even just dabbled in consoles or pc gaming, this is aa book which will have you saying "oh my god, that game was my life..."

It is slow to begin with but it turns into a tour de force which covers alll the landmark games, formats/consoles, the creators and companies that changed gaming, for better or worse. All the stories are engaging, telling how lives were changed through the products and how the genre continues to be relevant as muh as both music and film. Narration is good but nothing particularly special.

The four stars for the performace is only relative in comparison to my favourite fiction audio books read by the likes Frank Muller or Stephen Fry so it could be a 5 star review. It is a great insight into the industry and I highly recommend it.

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Customer Reviews

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2 out of 5 stars
By Charcoal on 11-16-15

Bleh

So many things not to like about this book. The minor and not-so-minor inaccuracies, the blatant agenda pushing around females in games (both creators and creations), the overly American centric view, the westernised portrails of events that happened in Japan, and the obnoxious analogies and pontification inserted by the author.
On the plus side, it was good to hear about some (slightly) less talked about developers and the narrator was pleasant. But I cant really suggest that anyone pick this up.

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1 of 1 people found this review helpful

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