All in the game: Youngsters negotiating hair-pin bends at the Demico Sheriff Street Video Arcade, as others impatiently wait their turn.
WHEN American physicist, William Higginbotham decided to spice up Open Day 1958 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory - a nuclear research facility in New York State - he most likely had no idea that the little gizmo that he conceived would essentially be the precursor to the multibillion dollar business that is today's video game industry.
Higginbotham designed the primitive Tennis for Two, an extraordinarily simple game that was viewed on the glorious five-inch screen of an oscilloscope. The game, simulating a side view of a tennis court, consisted of one dot being bounced back and forth over a net, basically an upside-down capital T with a shortened stem.
The game became addictive and it wasn't unusual to see dozens of people queued up to get a few minutes playing of Tennis for Two.
Though Higginbotham never made any money from his creation, over the next two decades, companies like Atari created by 27-year-old Nolan Bushnell and Magnavox, for whom video game pioneer, Ralph Baer created the Odyssey System, made millions of dollars and spawned both a new economy and culture.
In 1983, the video game industry, non-existent 20 years prior, had combined sales of around US$3B and video game characters like Pacman began turning up on various items of merchandising and in their own TV shows.
The snowballing momentum of the growth of the video/computer game industry was only checked with the video game crash of 1984-1985, but businesses have slowly been building up since.
One of the survivors of the bust is the century-old Nintendo Company,(see other story on this page) originally founded by Japanese businessman, Fusajiro Yamauchi to sell Hanafuda playing cards. Under the leadership of Fusajiro's grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi, the company began building and selling coin-operated video game arcades in 1978. In 1981, they released the hit arcade video game, Donkey Kong with its hero character called Jumpman, later being given his own title games.
In 1985, after the video game industry crash, Nintendo redesigned their 1983 Famicom video game console, sold exclusively in Japan, and marketed it in the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The console featured the two games Mario and Duck Hunt. In 1987, the NES became the best selling toy in America while NES adventure title, The Legend of Zelda, became the first console title to sell more than one million copies.
In Guyana, the NES quickly replaced the increasingly obsolete Atari systems as the console of choice. The term `Nintendo' became synonymous with video games in much the same way as the word `Colgate' was used for toothpaste, or `Chico' was used for chewing gum.
The NES went through several evolutions and avatars, including the handheld Game Boy system, which sold its one hundred millionth units in 2001, and the modern-version of the NES, the Nintendo Gamecube.
In the modern day home console universe, however, Nintendo is no longer King Coopa. Nintendo's former game development partner, Sony Corporation - one of the leaders in home electronics - developed its own entertainment system, the Playstation. Whereas, for the NES, Super NES and Nintendo 64 consoles, Nintendo used cartridges, Sony used CDs for its console.
With better graphics and sound quality and more exciting gameplay, Sony's Playstation quickly became the industry's front-runner, with some brief competition from a new console, the Dreamcast, put out by Sega, Nintendo's former nemesis. Until the launch of Nintendo's CD driven, Gamecube and the powerful X-Box, officially launched in 2000 by Microsoft's CEO Bill Gates, the Playstation was virtually unchallenged on the console market.
With the X-box, Microsoft created a powerful gaming console that none of the others, even the Playstation's successor, the PS2 (launched after the X-Box), have been able to match in terms of sheer performance ability.
The X-Box received the Best Game Console nods from several industry and non-industry publications in 2002 and 2003, as well as a Design and Engineering Award from Popular Mechanics and a Best New Tech Products listing in Popular Science.
With more and more gamers getting into the game so to speak, and with the relatively high cost of a console being a factor which forces them to choose one console out of the three, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have been in heated competition to make sure that the very best games are released exclusively on their consoles, with the lower echelon titles being released cross-platform.
In a currently running poll on MTV.com, on the best video game of the millennium, Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series (from the NES version through to its Gamecube avatars) is currently in the lead, followed by the X-box's phenomenal first person shooter, Halo.
The Legend of Zelda is a fantasy adventure game where you control the main character, Link, in helping to rescue Princess Zelda from the clutches of the evil Lord Ganon, while Halo's more complex storyline sees you controlling a cyborg soldier named John 117 against a group of fanatical aliens collectively called the Covenant, on a ring-shaped planet called Halo.
Halo itself has racked up even more credits than its platform console with no less that 48 awards from different gaming authorities including `Game of the Year' and `Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering' awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences in 2002.
On the local scene
Like much of American popular culture, gaming has been with us in Guyana for a number of years. Originally restricted to a few upper-class children playing first generation games on first generation consoles like the Atari and the NES, as second generation consoles and games came into the picture, the older games were either given away freely or sold at cheap prices to buyers in a lower income bracket. Also, the official price for these games, due to the decreased demand, went down.
Then came the video arcades. Technically, the little game shops that started popping up all around Georgetown during the 1990s cannot be classified as arcades in the proper sense. They mostly consisted then, as even the more ambitious ones do now, of several home entertainment game consoles linked to as many television sets.
The very first local arcades or game-shops consisted of one usually second-generation console, either the NES or the Sega Genesis, and were usually entrepreneurial ventures of young men who had gotten tired of playing the games themselves.
One such youth is Yusiel Bovell, operator of his own 'arcade' located in his parent's shop in Guyhoc Park. Bovell, 21, has been in business since around 1995, when he set up his NES and a clone console (a cheaper version of consoles that offer low graphic games, usually pre-programmed into them). His patrons were usually young boys from the Guyhoc and nearby Tucville neighbourhoods.
In addition to providing Bovell with an income, his videogame 'arcade' helped attract customers, usually young boys set on shopping errands, to his parents' business. With hit games like Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter, which were successful arcade titles, the volume of customers to Bovell's business increased. He used the money he earned to invest in more advanced consoles, newer games and additional television sets, usually purchased second-hand.
The young entrepreneur has had, at one time or the other, almost every new console that has been on the market since NES, with the exception of the Nintendo Gamecube.
At one time, Bovell had three X-boxes and one Playstation 2 in operation.
Bigger businesses have taken notice of what has previously been exclusively a bottom-house phenomenon and have tried to capitalise on its popularity. The relatively recent Game Fanatak Arcade, run by the management of Quality Fast Food and Upscale Restaurant, is currently running an ad in which it claims to be `Guyana's First Real Videogame Arcade'. This isn't quite the case, on two grounds.
Firstly, real videogame arcades are coin-operated machines featuring usually only one title; Video Fanatik simply does now what Yusiel Bovell has been doing for eight years. The only real video game arcades that Sunday Chronicle has seen in operation in Guyana was the ones in Buddies Pool Hall, which are now out of service; and the ones housed at Banks DIH Sheriff Street outlet.
The Banks Qik Serve outlet features two coin-op machines: one, popular with younger children features redesigned versions of several classic arcade games, like Space Invaders; the other machine plays the game Manx TT Superbike in which players mount what closely resembles and very realistically simulates - accelerator, brakes, and gear-levers - two superbikes and either play against each other or against the computer, with the race being displayed on two screens in front of them.
Secondly, Game Fanatik has not been the first large-scale operation of this type. Rayon's House of Fashion previously ran a similar 'arcade' out of its Reggae Video Club & Nintendo Club on Robb Street and later at its L & D Video Rentals & Arcade branch on South Road. And other such 'arcades' exist around town.
Game Fanatik is simply a bit more organised, a bit bigger and a bit more attentive to décor than the rest. The Sunday Chronicle spoke with the business supervisor/game attendant, Carl Peters, last week. According to him, the 'arcade' runs 16 consoles, eight X-boxes and eight PS2s.
He says that the most popular games that they currently have in stock are Halo, and Grand Theft Auto 2: Vice City, a popular title for the PS2. His patrons are a mixture of teenagers and adults, mostly men, with the rare young woman showing up every now and then.
Game Fanatik opens from 8:00 hrs and closes until 21:30 hrs, Monday to Saturday. Since this time encompasses school hours, the Sunday Chronicle asked Peters about the controls the business has to deter school children from playing truant just to 'turk', the popular lingo for addictive game playing. Peters says that he allows school age children in uniform before 9:00 hrs, during the one-hour lunchbreak, and after 15:00 hrs. Even the ones who turn up between 13:00 hrs and 15:00 hrs in the afternoon, claiming that there was only half-day school, are turned away.
Game Fanatik runs regular competitions, where the winners usually get to choose between free membership and playing time or cash prizes. The competitions usually attract not only Game Fanatik regulars but also other game 'turks', roving in bands or as individual lone rangers, aching to prove themselves against other opponents.
Perhaps the biggest opportunity many of them will get to do this, however, will not come from game 'arcade' operators but from another company that, like Game Fanatik, has been running ads featuring videogames - Gizmos and Gadgets.
The Sunday Chronicle spoke to Gizmos and Gadgets owner, Ravi Mangar. Mangar says that the ads, which feature action clips of the games he has in stock at his Robb and Wellington Streets tech store, are geared to introduce more Guyanese to the world of videogames.
An avid gamer himself (he possesses an X-box), the young entrepreneur seems to have done his research.
"The videogame market," he says, "is a billion-dollar industry. The releases of some games are similar to the release of a Hollywood movie."
He seriously believes that there are benefits to playing videogames, the primary one being keeping young children occupied and out of trouble. He says that there are also games that the entire family can enjoy, including titles that feature fun and sporting activities like dancing, and tennis.
When invited to comment on the high levels of violence in some games and the use of profanity in others, Mangar says that this occurs in every other form of media. What he offers his customers, many of whom are parents shopping for games for their young children, is the information that, like movies, games are rated by a standard rating board in the US, and the CD cases have the game ratings printed on the cover.
Videogames are rated by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), based in Manhattan in the US. Ratings range from EC (`Early Childhood') to A (`Adult') with general rating E for `Everyone', and RP `Rating Pending' for games that have been submitted to the ESRB but have not yet been rated.
Mangar says that he gets his advice from a proven expert on videogames, his 13-year old cousin, Arun Lall. The Form 2, Bishops' High School student is the owner of both a PS2, X-box and a Game Boy Advance SP. He says that he swaps games and information with his friends and at the same time gets a feel for what games his mates show a strong interest in, information which he passes on to Mangar.
Ravi Mangar feels that the time is ripe for Guyana to have its first formal introduction to videogames. He is planning the first ever Video Game Fair and Multi-Game Tournament, sometime in April.
For the Game Fair aspect of the event, he plans to display some of the latest in gaming technology and to have people come and play games and understand more of what different games are actually about.
And local `turks' willing to prove that they are the real champions in games like Halo, will get a chance to do just that, with the game tournament. Mangar says that he plans to invest over half a million dollars in prizes, which will include free gaming consoles and games.
What the parents say
While at Gizmos and Gadgets, the Sunday Chronicle had the opportunity to speak with two young gamers and the parents whom they brought along to pay for the games that they wanted.
PS2 owner, Steven Mohan was on the prowl for some new games. The chubby six-year-old was with his mother, Sharon. When asked what games he liked playing, Steven quickly blurted out that he liked `Scorpion King' (a title based on the hit movie), and another game featuring "the man with sword." Sharon Mohan says that she buys the games to keep him occupied, but not to the detriment of his schoolwork. Steven, obviously an enthusiastic gamer, isn't allowed to touch his PS2 unless he has done all his homework.
William Jeffrey, father of eight-year-old Kareem, has a similar regimen for his son. Kareem only gets to put in an hour or two on his PS2 everyday, but is given more free reign on weekends.
After querying why the Sunday Chronicle was seeking "all this advice" from him, Kareem said that his favourite games are pro wrestling title WWF Smackdown! and adventure game Tombraider: The Angel of Darkness.
The elder Jeffrey probably epitomised most parents when he related his experience with games: he used to try playing with Kareem, on the youngster's insistence, but eventually gave up in despair. He's relegated himself to simply making sure that his son's games fall into his age rating.
Lookout Guyana
As the prices go down, more and more Guyanese are buying consoles. Where an X-box cost almost $100, 000 about two years ago, the console now retails at an average of $55, 000.
And as the prices go down, the functionality of the different consoles go up. All three fourth-generation consoles offer varying pluses to the traditional game playing.
The lame horse of fourth-generation consoles, Nintendo Gamecube offers CD playing capabilities.
The new kid on the block, the X-box, with years of software and hardware experience in its maker, Microsoft, powers ahead of the competition when it comes to the sheer capability of its technology. The game CD drive reads CDs and DVDs and it is the only system to feature an onboard multi-gigabyte hard drive on which players can store their progress in games (the other two consoles use memory chips). The hard drive can also store thousands of songs in the MP3 format and it is capable of storing MPEG videos as well.
But PS2, the current market leader, has a wide variety of accessories in addition to a CD/DVD player, which make the games more interesting and realistic: the dance mat which rates a person's dancing steps; steering wheels and realistic looking controls for vehicle simulation games; and there is the new eye toy, which gauges a players physical movements optically and then translates that into the movement of a video game character onscreen.
Falling prices, cool gadgets, increased interaction, and a big getting-to-know-you fair on the horizon: Guyana is poised on the brink of finally getting into the game.