For people who were children in the Western (Free World) in post-oil crisis 1970s, the video games on the time are the stuff of nostalgic memories. At the time school principals and teachers, influenced by Neo-Confucianism, often warned their students “Don’t become addicted to video games! They are only for delinquent kids! The video games available in Taiwan at the time included hand held games and large game machines, TV games for two players and PC games for single players that appealed to loners like me. In the last 30 years video games have undergone amazing changes, transforming from symbols of decadence in the eyes of parents and teachers to the main pillars of the global IT and entertainment industry. This process is deserving of being the subject of a history book that examines the relationship between video games, society, and culture.

This is our Spacewar!

In Kaohsiung, the National Museum of Science & Technology arranged for “Game On,” an acclaimed exhibition that has toured the world, to come to Taiwan. In this special exhibition the most curiosity-inspiring exhibit is undoubtedly the world’s first video game “Spacewar!”. Wikipedia’s English version is more reserved, saying that it is merely the earliest video game that has been identified to date. It is very easy to play. On the two-dimensional space two space ships appear and the players uses a button to control his/her spaceship and attack the enemy, while avoiding a collision or falling into the sun and being incinerated. This kind of simple sound/light picture is totally different to the dazzling 3D video games that emerged after 2000. However, Spacewar was not just a stage on which young people in the US and Europe lived out their dreams and released youthful energy, it also served to attract many talented people in the fields of IT, writing, art design and marketing to the video games industry, setting the foundation on which the video game empires that we now see were built.

"Spacewar!" in Kaohsiung

This machine looks unwieldy but it was epoch-making, setting into motion a life and entertainment revolution that is still on-going today. Knowing this, I felt respect for this venerable pioneering video game when I stood in front of it...