The Art of Video Games Video Transcripts “Beginnings” The Art of Video Games Exhibition Video Producer: Dan Sonnett FADE IN: Bushnell on camera. TITLE: Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari NOLAN BUSHNELL: One of the things that’s really fun with games is the whole idea of the playful mind and how can we make games surprise you? PUSH IN on Atari VSC consul with Combat cartridge. NOLAN BUSHNELL: When we did the VCS probably the biggest surprise that we had was how flexible it was. And yet it was extremely powerful in what you could do with it. Bushnell on camera. NOLAN BUSHNELL: There’s no question that when you have a very, very fundamental system… You know, it’s like, we were building games based on the rules of physics. You know, it was really simple. GAME FOOTAGE: COMBAT TITLE: Combat, 1977 NOLAN BUSHNELL: And yet it was extremely powerful in what you could do with it if you were creative, interested and very, very smart. Mical on camera. TITLE: RJ Mical, Video game pioneer RJ MICAL: It used to be the case that the hardware engineers would put together cool technology and then throw it at the software guys and say here figure out what you can do with this. GAME FOOTAGE: Zaxxon TITLE: Zaxxon, 1982 RJ MICAL: And the software guys, clever guys that they are would not only learn how to use it, but they’d always try drive it to its maximum limits… Mical on camera. RJ MICAL: where they wanted to take the system and make it bigger, make it better. So, they drove the basic design of it and evolved it into a more powerful system. Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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Cartwight on camera. TITLE: Steve Cartwright, game designer STEVE CARTWRIGHT: Back in the early days, the graphics were crude enough that we did our own graphics. The sounds were crude enough that we did our own sounds. So we became the designer, the director, the art director, the musician. We even wrote the manual, designed the box. IMAGE: Pitfall! box GAME FOOTAGE: Pitfall! TITLE: Pitfall, 1980 STEVE CARTWRIGHT: The game Pitfall! evolved out of a lot of trail and error. It started with, let me try to make a man running on the screen. Where might he be running? I’ll make him run in a jungle. Why not? Cartwight on camera. STEVE CARTWRIGHT: All you need is the faintest kernel of an idea to start with and you work on perfecting that little nugget until it feels fun. GAME FOOTAGE: Pitfall! STEVE CARTWRIGHT: And you build upon that. Daglow on camera. TITLE: Don Daglow, Video game pioneer DON DAGLOW: The obligation in the early days of games was heavily on the user for willing suspension of disbelief. GAME FOOTAGE: Utopia TITLE: Utopia, 1981 DON DAGLOW: We really did ask users to use their imagination. And, because the whole idea of computer graphics telling story was so fresh, they were ready to do it. Daglow on camera. DON DAGLOW: You’d like of all the things you could do in a perfect whole, and the tech would let you do the postage stamp in the middle of that that landscape. But, of course, the postage stamp keeps getting bigger as the years go by. Jenkins on camera. TITLE: Henry Jenkins, Media scholar HENRY JENKINS: My son was about six. He wanted a Nintendo system for Christmas. We plugged it in and up came Super Mario Brothers for the very first time. GAME FOOTAGE: SUPER MARIO BROTHERS TITLE: Super Mario Brothers, 1985 HENRY JENKINS: And I was blown away by the phenomenal growth and development that games had undergone. And, I thought, if those ten years wrought that much change in the capacity of this medium… Jenkins on camera. Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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HENRY JENKINS: …this was going to be a medium of enormous expressive capacity of enormous social capacity. GAME FOOTAGE: SUPER MARIO BROTHERS HENRY JENKINS: That it was going to be the art form of the 21st century. FADE TO BLACK. CREDITS. COPYRIGHT NOTICE. FADE TO BLACK. The End “Inspiration” The Art of Video Games Exhibition Video Producer: Dan Sonnett FADE IN: Schell on camera. TITLE: Jesse Schell, Video game developer JESSE SCHELL: I try to draw inspiration from everywhere. Because inspiration can come from everywhere. It can come from all over the place, from film, from literature, from physical experience, from human relationships, from just history. It could come from all over the place. CU Dungeons and Dragons books on a game board, dice. JESSE SCHELL: I guess a clear turning point in my life was introduction to Dungeons and Dragons. The idea of a world that was limitless that you could put anything into… Schell on camera. JESSE SCHELL: …and that you could make the imaginary real in a tangible way was a huge turning point in my life as a game designer. Spector on camera. TITLE: Warren Spector, Video game pioneer WARREN SPECTOR: The first game that just blew my mind was Dungeons and Dragons, MS Dungeons and Dragons game board. WARREN SPECTOR: …sitting around with friends and telling stories together. That was huge for me. And I’ve been doing that ever since. Spector on camera. WARREN SPECTOR: I mean, in the electronic game space, all I’ve tried to do for the last twenty odd years is recreate that experience. Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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GAME FOOTAGE: Deus Ex TITLE: Deus Ex, 2000 WARREN SPECTOR: What story does in games is provide a context for player actions, player choices. In essence, when you’re playing Deus Ex or any other game, all you're really doing is you’re moving a green pixel over a brown pixel, pressing a button at the right millisecond that causes a red pixel to appear. Spector on camera. WARREN SPECTOR: That first pixel is a bullet and that second pixel is a bad guy who’s threatening your brother and that red pixel is you’ve now saved your brother, all of a sudden, that’s significant. And that’s what story can do. GAME FOOTAGE: Deus Ex WARREN SPECTOR: What story does in games is it provides significance. You have to save your brother. You’ve only got ten minutes. Here’s the problem that you have to solve to save your brother. Go. MacLean on camera. TITLE: Jen MacLean, Video game developer JEN MACLEAN: One of the most recent games that I played is Mass Effect 2. And it’s one of my favorite games, in part because of the amazing strong character that I play as a woman, female Shepherd. GAME FOOTAGE: MASS EFFECT 2 TITLE: Mass Effect 2, Xbox 360, 2010 JEN MACLEAN: And she’s very strong. And she’s very forceful. But she’s also out there saving the galaxy. And the idea that you have this heroine… MacLean on camera. JEN MACLEAN: …who, by the way, looks like me and acts the way I tell her to act. So you can really identify with that person very much. GAME FOOTAGE: MASS EFFECT 2 JEN MACLEAN: That’s a really powerful form of entertainment. Chen on camera. TITLE: Jenova Chen, Video game designer JENOVA CHEN: I grew up in Shanghai, which is a huge metropolitan city, but doesn’t necessarily have that much green, you know. I had never seen a rolling grass hill. GAME FOOTAGE: FLOWER TITLE: Flower, 2009 JENOVA CHEN: So when I come to California, I see these farms, endless green, the windmills. It really gave me a sense of nature. I wanted to capture that because it’s so overwhelming. It’s like a person that has never seen the ocean going to the beach for the first time. Chen on camera. Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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JENOVA CHEN: With a game, I can do that. I can let the player fly through the grass as if their face is next to it. They can push away the grass they can smell it by interacting with them at close distance, but also they can fly up and oversee the entire the scale of the field. It makes you feel you can go anywhere you want. You can’t do that in a painting, but in a game you actually physically can do that. Schell on camera. JESSE SCHELL: I’ve always been fascinated with creating entertainment experiences that make people say, “Wow. I’ve never seen that before.” And you can do that in lots of media. But since video games are always integrating new technologies and new things that are coming, I’ve just found there’s more ways to kind of give people that experience of, “Whoa. I’ve never seen that before.” MacLean on camera. JEN MACLEAN: You don’t need technology to provoke those emotions. You don’t need technology to create feelings and love and fear and hate and passion. GAME FOOTAGE: MASS EFFECT 2 GAME DIALOUGE: “What are you doing here? I thought you were a work-in-progress.” JEN MACLEAN: You need great storytelling. GAME DIALOUGE: “I just woke up. You probably know more than I do.” Chen on camera. JENOVA CHEN: Everything is an art. Anything a human does has a potential to express and they are all art. GAME FOOTAGE: FLOWER JENOVA CHEN: There is no difference between digital and traditional. They are all just different technology that people invented to be expressive. FADE TO BLACK GAME CREDITS COPYRIGHT NOTICE FADE TO BLACK THE END “Narrative” The Art of Video Games Exhibition Video Producer: Dan Sonnett FADE IN: Santiago on camera TITLE: Kellee Santiago, Video game producer

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KELLEE SANTIAGO: I think games offer a unique opportunity as a medium to create experiences that only really exist between the player and the work itself, the game itself. GAME FOOTAGE: FLOWER TITLE: Flower, 2009 KELLEE SANTIAGO: For instance, in Flower, we have very minimalistic story to really invite the player to bring their own experience and therefore their own interpretation from the game. Hunicke on camera TITLE: Robin Hunicke, Video game producer ROBIN HUNICKE: I think about the game process, the way we make games, it’s a lot about planting little seeds and then seeing which ones grow, because you have to have a lot of people think about the idea and work on the idea for to it really thrive. FOOTAGE: Behind-the-scenes at thatgamecompany. ROBIN HUNICKE: The design process helps us take this big concept and shape it and mold it. Every stage in the design process, we hone in on the core value, the core thing, the one piece of meaning that we really need to communicate through this work of art. KELLEE SANTIAGO: Really, the question of: Are people going to like this? Are players going to enjoy this? Is the message going to be communicated through the game? And we play test through very many times throughout the experience of development to get a sense of that. Santiago on camera KELLEE SANTIAGO: But I always feel like we really never know until the game is just out there. Mical on camera. TITLE: RJ Mical, Video game pioneer RJ MICAL: The simple games give you a complete experience without really causing you to be completely submerged in the environment. There’s a lot of superb games that are out there right now that I love that are not anything like a simple game. A great example of that would be Uncharted 2. GAME FOOTAGE: UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES TITLE: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, 2009 RJ MICAL: It’s like playing a movie. It’s what we used to dream about 20 years ago, becoming a reality. It’s not quite there yet, it’s not really a movie, you can tell you’re playing a computer game. But it’s getting so close now where you get actual emotional involvement with the characters and where the way the plot is developing really matters to you, it’s not just a convenient framework to have a game on, but where the story line itself matters. Cage on camera. TITLE: David Gage, writer and director, Heavy Rain DAVID CAGE: I guess what is really unique about games is the fact that they put you in the shoes of the main character, and you make choices that will have consequences ultimately. GAME FOOTAGE: HEAVY RAIN TITLE: Heavy Rain, 2010 Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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DAVID CAGE: So, with Heavy Rain I was looking for a way to make the player play the story. And that was the main challenge… GAME DIALOUGE: “What do you want to know?” DAVID CAGE: …from a conceptual point of view, to make this story fully interactive. GAME DIALOUGE: “Did you suspect anyone after he disappeared?” DAVID CAGE: “I meet a lot of pretty shady characters in my line of work.” DAVID CAGE: The game could behave like a mirror that you give to the player. Cage on camera DAVID CAGE: There are some moral choices at some points, some things, where you really wonder, “What should I do?” And the answer is not obvious. GAME DIALOUGE: “Don’t touch me!” Pinckard on camera. TITLE: Jane Pinckard, Video game scholar JANE PINCKARD: Storytelling is such an important way of self-expression culturally that it makes sense that it shows up in every art form that we have, including games. GAME FOOTAGE: UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES GAME DIALOUGE: “Now don’t jump to conclusions, Elena.” “I’m sorry. Am I sensing some history here?” “Oh, Elena Fisher. Last year’s model.” “That’s cute.” Pinckard on camera. JANE PINCKARD: I’ve been thinking a lot about romance and flirting. And the first game that sort of started that whole trend came out years ago. And it was Knights of the Old Republic. GAME FOOTAGE: STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC TITLE: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, 2003 JANE PINCKARD: It’s a spacer RPG set in Star Wars. So you’re like running around and shooting aliens and then all of a sudden, your sort of NPC character whose your companion. And there’s one moment in the game when he says, “I’m all ears, beautiful.” Pinckard on camera. JANE PINCKARD: And that was the moment when I was like, “He’s flirting with me!” And I felt those sorts of feelings that you feel “Does he like me? Did he mean that? Does he think I’m beautiful? What’s going on?” And it was like I was responding to this character like it was a real person. GAME FOOTAGE: STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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Pinckard on camera JANE PINCKARD: Because I think really what’s happening when you fall in love with somebody is you’re trying to get to know this other person. But this other being is so complex and so beautiful… GAME DIALOUGE: “I might consider it. What are you going to call me in exchange?” JANE PINCKARD: …you’ll never really fully understand their system. GAME DIALOUGE:“Is that it? You can do better than that!” Pinckard on camera JANE PINCKARD: And yet, it’s so delightful to constantly try. And in a way, I feel that that matches perhaps to interaction with a game system. GAME FOOTAGE: STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC JANE PINCKARD: You constantly want to go back into it and explore and discover new things about them that you didn’t know existed. GAME DIALOUGE: “And, no, I’m not going to discuss them. So can we just keep our mind our more important things?” “Good. Like I said before, I prefer action to talk, anyway.” FADE OUT. CREDITS COPYRIGHT NOTICE THE END “Experience” The Art of Video Games Exhibition Video Producer: Dan Sonnett FADE IN: Schafer on camera. TITLE: Tim Schafer, Video game designer TIM SCHAFER: I’ll always remember when Super Mario 64 came out on the N64. And it was the first time I really felt like I was freely exploring a 3D space. GAME FOOTAGE: SUPER MARIO 64 TITLE: Super Mario 64, 1996 TIM SCHAFER: And I wasn’t thinking about the technology, the 3D-ness of it, but mostly about the fact that it felt like a real place, which was always the dream to go into an imaginary virtual place inside the machine. I think it’s fun for someone who’s not very powerful, like a young child to like do something really powerful on the screen. Schafer on camera.

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TIM SCHAFER: That’s one of the strongest feelings you get when you’re playing video games is that feeling of, “I miss that world and I want to go back to.” And that’s what you try to achieve with every game you make is to create a world so real that people miss it when they’re not playing the game. Gilbert on camera. TITLE: Ron Gilbert, Video game designer RON GILBERT: For Monkey Island, it was really me sitting around writing a lot of little short stories. GAME FOOTAGE: The Secret of Monkey Island TITLE: The Secret of Monkey Island, 1990 RON GILBERT: I wrote these one-page stories just over and over and over again, really trying to pull out of that world what it was that was going to be interesting about that. The thing about games is to me the main character in an adventure game is the world. It's not Guybrush Threepwood. It's the world. It's that world that he exists in. And Guybrush is just the lens that we use to look at that whole world. Gilbert on camera. RON GILBERT: And it was really about making sure that world made a lot of sense. Schell on screen. TITLE: Jesse Schell, Video game developer JESSE SCHELL: Without a doubt, the single largest advance in the development of video games is the presence of network connectivity. GAME FOOTAGE: StarCraft TITLE: StarCraft, 1998 JESSE SCHELL: As soon as games were available to network and then we were able to create the internet, it created this ability to create worlds, imaginary worlds, with real people. This is not about something that changed the history of video games. This is the biggest change in humanity that we’ve probably had since the development of fire. Tallarico on camera. TITLE: Tommy Tallarico, Musician & composer TOMMY TALLARICO: No time ever in the history of the world has more music been played more times than in video games right now. GAME FOOTAGE: World of Warcraft TITLE: World of Warcraft, 2004 TOMMY TALLARICO: Think of the game World of Warcraft where people are playing 20, 30 hours a week and the music is in your face, pounding. We’re doing things now that Beethoven and Mozart never dreamed of that would be possible, you know. Tallarico on screen. TOMMY TALLARICO: We’re able to do things in music and branch out interactively. And if the player stops here… GAME FOOTAGE: REZ TITLE: Rez, 2001 Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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TOMMY TALLARICO: then we need to keep this rolling. But if he goes in that direction, then let’s start bringing in a percussion track. It’s almost like the player becomes the conductor. TOMMY TALLARICO: I’ve always said that if Beethoven were alive today, he’d be a video game composer, no doubt in my mind. Mika on screen. TITLE: Mike Mika, Video game developer MIKE MIKA: Your skill watching a movie might be eating popcorn. A skill playing a game is you feel like you've succeeded at learning something and you're good at it. GAME FOOTAGE: SONIC ADVENTURE TITLE: Sonic Adventure, 1998 MIKE MIKA: When you press the button, you jump. It's not just a jump. When you press the button and hold the button, you jump higher. When you jump and push left when you're going right, you change direction in the air. All these things add to this visceral experience in the game that you would never get from a movie, and you feel like you're learning something like riding a bike or riding a skateboard and you can come back to it and improve. Mika on screen. MIKE MIKA: And there's something about that motivation. There's something about that kind of experience that drives a player to continue to play that game and come back to it again and again. Spector on camera. TITLE: Warren Spector, Video game pioneer WARREN SPECTOR: It's not just a puzzle. It's something that people really can relate to and feel very emotional about. GAME FOOTAGE: Disney Epic Mickey TITLE: Disney Epic Mickey, 2010 WARREN SPECTOR: Disney Epic Mickey, it wasn’t just an intellectual exercise for players. It wasn’t just mash buttons and beat a bad guy for players. It really touches people. I hope they see the potential of video games as a medium where you can learn something about the world and about yourself, try things out in a virtual world that we would never want to you trying out in the real world… Spector on camera. WARREN SPECTOR: And return to the real world from these virtual worlds kind of a changed and better person. Perry on camera. TITLE: David Perry, Video game producer DAVID PERRY: Video games aren’t this trivial little form of entertainment. It's not like just a colorful crossword or something that we’re doing here. This is something that touches people deeply. GAME FOOTAGE: flOw TITLE: flOw, 2006 DAVID PERRY: If you don’t play video games yet, we’re going to get you. Trust me, we’re going to find a way to get a game to you. So you can understand just how powerful this medium is. Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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FADE OUT CREDITS COPYRIGHT NOTICE THE END “The Future” The Art of Video Games Exhibition Video Producer: Dan Sonnett FADE IN: MAIN TITLE Jenkins on camera. TITLE: Henry Jenkins, Media scholar HENRY JENKINS: I think what we’ve seen from games so far is just the beginning of what this medium is capable of doing. There’s already artistic achievement there. I don’t think there’s a question whether games have become an art, but I think they can become a richer and deeper art. GAME FOOTAGE: Uncharted 2 TITLE: Uncharted 2, 2009 HENRY JENKINS: It takes a while for artists to really get inside a medium deep enough to understand what this medium is capable of doing. Falstein on camera. TITLE: Noah Falstein, Video game developer NOAH FALSTEIN: In a narrative experience like reading a book or seeing a movie you essentially want to know what happened to someone else, what choices did they make and how did it turn out. GAME FOOTAGE: Fallout 3 TITLE: Fallout 3, 2008 NOAH FALSTEIN: We play games to get some useful information that’s somehow linked deep in our brains to survival skills. Falstein on camera. NOAH FALSTEIN: And with a game it’s about, well, “What should I do? And what skills should I develop? And what choices should I make?” Daglow on screen. TITLE: Don Daglow, Video game pioneer DON DAGLOW: At our best we can bring people together in a way that’s even harder to do in theater and film because they are doing things together. GAME FOOTAGE: Pikmin 2 Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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TITLE: Pikmin 2, 2004 DON DAGLOW: They are setting out upon the quest together; they are facing the dangers, they are discussing the options, they’re making decisions, and they’re building community. Daglow on screen DON DAGLOW: But the soil from which every one of those things grew is a dream. GAME FOOTAGE: Pikmin 2 DON DAGLOW: And if you can picture that dream and how it turned into something, you’d understand games better and how games are made. Hunicke on camera. TITLE: Robin Hunicke, Video game producer ROBIN HUNICKE: Our industry is a huge and beautiful place filled with people that are creative and talented who want to share experiences with other people. FOOTAGE: Behind the scenes at thatgamecompany ROBIN HUNICKE: Play enriches your life. Video games have the capacity to connect people and help them share their feelings, their thoughts, that shows their true creative spirit. Tallarico on camera. TITLE: Tommy Tallarico, Musician & composer TOMMY TALLARICO: The future of video games is really going to be in the storytelling and the emotional connection. GAME FOOTAGE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess TITLE: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, 2006 TOMMY TALLARICO: Whether you play games or not, millions of people all over the world have such an emotional connection to this industry and to these games and these characters on so many different levels. MacLean on camera. TITLE: Jen MacLean, Video game designer JEN MACLEAN: Games aren’t just blowing things up. Games aren’t just looking at pixels moving around and trying to get a high score. GAME FOOTAGE: Heavy Rain TITLE: Heavy Rain, 2010 JEN MACLEAN: I’d love to see them enrich somebody’s life by helping them learn to feel more, learn to love more, learn to invest more in the world around them. MacLean on camera. JEN MACLEAN: Start thinking about the stories behind all of these games. Start asking what stories you have to tell. Fries on camera. Smithsonian American Art Museum Video Transcripts, The Art of Video Games 3/7/12/my

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TITLE: Ed Fries, Video game developer ED FRIES: Maybe it’s not that the invention of computers that’s interesting, it’s the way computers through games are changing our lives that’s interesting. GAME FOOTAGE: Minecraft TITLE: Minecraft, 2010 ED FRIES: Computers are just a mechanism through which our whole world is going to change around interactivity. Fries on camera. ED FRIES: You know, you had the Industrial Age, and what age is this? Like the Information Age or something like that. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s the Game Age.

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