Game On at the Tech Museum -- a review

Last Saturday my family and I trucked on down to San Jose to check out "Game On", an exhibit at The Tech Museum of Innovation. Here's what the flyer I have for it says: "This highly interactive exhibition examines the exploding videogame industry from the game design process to games culture and beyond. Come experience the past forty years of electronic gaming." Highly interactive -- check. They had so many arcade machines and consoles set up that it was a blast to play, say, Tennis on the original Magnavox Odyssey with my dad, or feel how awkward the controller for the Atari Jaguar was. A MAME emulator was set up and projected onto a giant screen for all to see. There was definitely alot to play with. One of my favorite aspects of the exhibit was watching kids play the old games. It's amazing, they really do see to have a natural instinct for digial gaming. I messed around with Manic Miner on an old british Spectrum, got quickly frustrated, and backed off. Some nine year old stepped up and cleared the board without even trying. The other intersting thing about the kids was that it really didn't seem to matter to them which of the games were the newest or prettiest. They'd play anything in front of them and seem to love it. My mom got to watch in awe as someone played Steel Battalion (she really likes mechs). Interactivity: A Game Design Process -- Weak. There really wasn't much at all on the actual process of making the games. Incidentally, this was a big reason I had dragged my family to San Jose in the first place. I was hoping to share with them a bit of what I do. There was a little bit on music in games, which my dad (being a jazz musician) found interesting, and there were some artifacts from the design process of GTA III and Tomb Raider. But what I was hoping for was something that examined the different roles in a game company and how they all work together. There was really nothing of the sort. Examining Design Process: D Games Culture -- eh. The games culture "section" of the exhibit featured four big franchises (GTA, The Sims, Lara Croft, Pokemon), a few Japanese games, a tiny handful of indie games and a tiny handful of "Kid's Games". The franchises section basically showed off some interesting artifacts for each one (the original game outline for Tomb Raider, the post-it note design map for GTA III, etc.) and had a tiny blurb on how the game in question has found itself under non-game-player's scrutiny. But the blurbs were so cursory, they didn't really get into any of the issues at hand. For example, on the little plaque for GTA there was a sentence to the effect of "The Grand Theft Auto series has been the target of some controversy." Uhmm, ok...care to elaborate on that?? The gameplay wasn't even described, just the fact that Rockstar made it, it sold this many copies, etc. Weak. It was much the same for the other highlighted games. Zero context. This annoyed me, especially if you consider that the audience of this exhibition isn't neccesarily the game-savvy. I was hoping that there would be interesting information to the non-gaming public. Alas, I was sorely disappointed. The Japanese games, indie games and kid's games were not any of the more interesting ones I'd seen...I would've picked different ones and again, provided more context as to why. Culture: D- 40 Years of History: Oh yes! Can't argue with this one! How awesome was it to see an original PDP-1, the type of which helped spawn Spacewar! Or one of these gorgeous Computer Space cabinets. (This image stolen from the very excellent Dot Eaters site.) They had the yellow one too. Fun to see old ads, play ancient consoles and learn about the business that caused the rise and fall of each machine and company. The trip was worth it if only for all this. History: A+ Summary: I was disapointed by the exhibit, but I would still have to say it was worth the trip. Not mind-blowing by any means, and I am sad that the exhibit will probably be more interesting to people already enthralled by game history than educational to the general public. But since I am one of those game history fans, I enjoyed it. I would have done a ton of things differently, and this will always color one's experience. Overall: B-