1 00:00:16,350 --> 00:00:20,103 [woman] I have always liked the idea of adventure. 2 00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:24,650 Hiking... 3 00:00:26,443 --> 00:00:27,778 exploring... 4 00:00:29,863 --> 00:00:33,242 I just have this really deep curiosity. 5 00:00:33,325 --> 00:00:34,868 It just doesn't seem to quit. 6 00:00:38,580 --> 00:00:43,126 My imagination was always taking me to all these places. 7 00:00:44,544 --> 00:00:47,256 I would dream about it, and I'd make up worlds. 8 00:00:49,841 --> 00:00:51,551 With the games I designed, 9 00:00:51,635 --> 00:00:54,179 the whole idea is to make you feel like you're there, 10 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:56,181 that you could explore. 11 00:01:01,979 --> 00:01:03,939 I just wanted to be swept away. 12 00:01:06,233 --> 00:01:08,235 [upbeat electronic music playing] 13 00:01:52,487 --> 00:01:55,115 [man] I met Roberta when we were in high school. 14 00:01:58,785 --> 00:02:01,538 I was very interested in girls at the time. 15 00:02:02,456 --> 00:02:03,874 And I liked her. 16 00:02:04,541 --> 00:02:06,501 It was kind of love at first sight. 17 00:02:06,585 --> 00:02:09,463 We got married four days after I turned 18... 18 00:02:09,963 --> 00:02:12,299 and have been together ever since. 19 00:02:14,134 --> 00:02:18,847 [Roberta] We are very different. Ken is more serious. 20 00:02:19,681 --> 00:02:21,933 He's a little bit more methodical. 21 00:02:22,517 --> 00:02:26,104 [Ken] When there's an adventure to be had, Roberta hears about it. 22 00:02:26,188 --> 00:02:29,274 Then all of a sudden, that's something we just have to do. 23 00:02:31,902 --> 00:02:33,737 [narrator] This is Roberta Williams. 24 00:02:34,321 --> 00:02:35,906 And starting in the late '70s, 25 00:02:35,989 --> 00:02:37,407 she and her husband Ken 26 00:02:37,491 --> 00:02:41,360 would take video games into a new dimension. 27 00:02:42,621 --> 00:02:45,415 [Roberta] He is Mr. Computer. 28 00:02:46,166 --> 00:02:50,170 When we first went out, he had just enrolled in a computer science class. 29 00:02:51,338 --> 00:02:56,176 So that year, a lot of our dates were in computer rooms. 30 00:02:56,259 --> 00:02:59,120 That gave me my introduction into computers. 31 00:03:00,263 --> 00:03:04,434 [narrator] In the early 1970s, computers weren't gaming machines. 32 00:03:04,518 --> 00:03:08,105 They ran calculations, contained databases... 33 00:03:08,188 --> 00:03:10,315 Not exactly pillow talk material. 34 00:03:10,399 --> 00:03:12,234 Unless you're Ken and Roberta. 35 00:03:13,527 --> 00:03:15,362 [Ken] One day when I brought home a computer, 36 00:03:15,445 --> 00:03:18,310 she took an interest in a game that I was playing 37 00:03:18,615 --> 00:03:21,618 and all of a sudden a whole different Roberta emerged. 38 00:03:24,621 --> 00:03:27,999 [Roberta] The game that was on it was called Colossal Cave 39 00:03:28,830 --> 00:03:30,794 which was the beginnings of the adventure games 40 00:03:31,253 --> 00:03:36,633 where you are actively involved with the story. 41 00:03:38,593 --> 00:03:42,550 [narrator] Colossal Cave Adventure was written by a computer programmer 42 00:03:42,139 --> 00:03:44,558 named Will Crowther in 1976, 43 00:03:45,517 --> 00:03:48,645 well before there was such a thing as computer graphics. 44 00:03:48,728 --> 00:03:52,899 And for most, a mouse was still just a rodent. 45 00:03:54,151 --> 00:03:56,987 So the game was played through words. 46 00:03:57,700 --> 00:04:02,325 The player typed in basic commands and the screen would respond back. 47 00:04:02,451 --> 00:04:06,413 It was a new genre of gaming: the text adventure. 48 00:04:06,496 --> 00:04:09,833 It was always, "What do you want to do?" Okay, you're in a clearing, 49 00:04:09,916 --> 00:04:12,252 and the well, it's really deep 50 00:04:12,335 --> 00:04:15,839 but you see a rope going down into the well. 51 00:04:15,922 --> 00:04:18,800 So you would go, "Get rope." 52 00:04:19,384 --> 00:04:22,971 And then as you're standing there, suddenly up on the text it would say, 53 00:04:23,540 --> 00:04:25,390 "You see a little dwarf coming your direction." 54 00:04:26,224 --> 00:04:30,812 [narrator] The game offered something that was truly unique at the time: choice. 55 00:04:31,313 --> 00:04:34,524 But if you didn't do anything, he could bring out an arrow 56 00:04:34,608 --> 00:04:37,486 and shoot you dead and you're dead. That's it, end of story. 57 00:04:37,569 --> 00:04:39,154 You have to start all over again. 58 00:04:39,779 --> 00:04:43,992 [narrator] And that choice was just the thing for an adventurous spirit. 59 00:04:44,750 --> 00:04:46,953 I would go to bed and think about it. 60 00:04:48,121 --> 00:04:50,457 How am I going to get past this dragon? 61 00:04:50,540 --> 00:04:53,960 'Cause there's a cavern behind this dragon 62 00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:56,129 and I must go there. 63 00:04:56,755 --> 00:04:58,256 How do I get past the dragon? 64 00:05:00,467 --> 00:05:03,428 I got very taken with this game. 65 00:05:03,512 --> 00:05:06,306 To the point was that's all I was doing. 66 00:05:06,848 --> 00:05:08,308 And, in about a month... 67 00:05:09,226 --> 00:05:10,352 I finished it. 68 00:05:11,610 --> 00:05:15,190 And I remember thinking, "You know what? I think I can do this. 69 00:05:15,273 --> 00:05:18,693 I think I can write a game. I really want to write a game. 70 00:05:19,611 --> 00:05:21,821 I'm going to write a game." 71 00:05:25,325 --> 00:05:29,120 [narrator] It took a novice like Roberta to ask the big questions: 72 00:05:29,621 --> 00:05:32,999 Could games be more than blasting aliens out of the sky 73 00:05:33,830 --> 00:05:36,200 and an endless back-and-forth of a pong ball? 74 00:05:36,628 --> 00:05:41,174 Could they invite players into new worlds to tell an interactive story? 75 00:05:45,637 --> 00:05:47,973 It would take some true storytellers 76 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:51,768 with a taste for the theatrical, shall we say, 77 00:05:51,851 --> 00:05:52,936 to figure it out. 78 00:06:04,739 --> 00:06:08,243 Ah, there you are. Welcome to Britannia Manor. 79 00:06:08,743 --> 00:06:10,662 You're probably wondering who I am. 80 00:06:10,745 --> 00:06:12,789 Would you like to hear a few tales? 81 00:06:14,541 --> 00:06:15,875 [chuckles] Very good. 82 00:06:15,959 --> 00:06:20,297 Well, it all began with a pair of polyhedral dice. 83 00:06:23,758 --> 00:06:28,179 As you open the door, you see a large darkened room 84 00:06:28,722 --> 00:06:32,434 with a vast iron chest sitting right in the middle. 85 00:06:33,590 --> 00:06:35,228 What do you do? 86 00:06:35,312 --> 00:06:37,220 [narrator] This is Richard Garriott. 87 00:06:37,105 --> 00:06:39,858 I lead the party in and I open the chest. 88 00:06:39,941 --> 00:06:42,110 [narrator] This is also Richard Garriott. 89 00:06:42,611 --> 00:06:43,820 This is him again. 90 00:06:43,904 --> 00:06:45,488 And one more time. 91 00:06:46,239 --> 00:06:50,827 As you can see, Richard likes to wear many different hats... literally. 92 00:06:52,370 --> 00:06:54,873 He's a deep-sea diver who has visited the Titanic... 93 00:06:55,624 --> 00:06:57,334 an explorer of the Amazon... 94 00:06:58,126 --> 00:07:00,545 and he's even been to space. 95 00:07:01,129 --> 00:07:06,134 He's also an iconic game developer and something called a dungeon master. 96 00:07:06,593 --> 00:07:08,261 As you open the chest, 97 00:07:08,762 --> 00:07:12,432 a bounty of treasures pour out around you onto the floor. 98 00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:17,200 [narrator] What you're watching right now is a game of Dungeons & Dragons, 99 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:21,566 a board game that took basements by storm in the mid-70s 100 00:07:21,650 --> 00:07:25,362 and inspired a generation of future game designers. 101 00:07:25,445 --> 00:07:30,492 It's exactly how computer games like Colossal Cave Adventure were conceived. 102 00:07:31,242 --> 00:07:34,537 Not in a computer, but on a table top. 103 00:07:35,455 --> 00:07:41,211 The four doors around the room open and in stream masses of goblins. 104 00:07:42,337 --> 00:07:47,342 You have a free form dialogue between a game master, 105 00:07:47,425 --> 00:07:51,471 who is describing what you might see in a fantasy setting, 106 00:07:52,970 --> 00:07:55,475 and the players, who have decision-making skills, 107 00:07:55,558 --> 00:07:58,978 react to the story that is being told. 108 00:08:02,816 --> 00:08:05,110 [narrator] The game is complicated. 109 00:08:06,820 --> 00:08:09,656 There are rule books hundreds of pages long, 110 00:08:10,323 --> 00:08:15,412 crazy-looking dice, and the same game can last for years. 111 00:08:16,370 --> 00:08:19,541 What's important to know is that it's a role-playing game. 112 00:08:19,624 --> 00:08:21,793 And one that became quite popular. 113 00:08:22,669 --> 00:08:25,880 It began as a cult phenomenon. Then it caught on. 114 00:08:25,964 --> 00:08:28,700 Now a new game is sweeping the country. 115 00:08:31,678 --> 00:08:34,347 [narrator] While herds of nerds adored the game... 116 00:08:34,431 --> 00:08:36,141 [man] But there's nothing there or anything? 117 00:08:36,224 --> 00:08:39,269 [narrator] ...vanquishing hell spawn and conjuring black magic... 118 00:08:39,352 --> 00:08:43,231 yeah, that had parents freaking out. 119 00:08:43,314 --> 00:08:45,275 [reporter] Dungeons & Dragons has been called 120 00:08:45,358 --> 00:08:50,447 the most effective introduction to the occult in the history of man. 121 00:08:50,947 --> 00:08:54,784 [man] I do not think that many parents are aware of what's inside the game. 122 00:08:54,868 --> 00:08:58,371 I mean, the gruesomeness of this game and the occult link to it… 123 00:08:58,955 --> 00:09:02,459 [narrator] And then Hollywood tried to cash in on the controversy 124 00:09:02,542 --> 00:09:06,212 with a TV movie about an eerily similar game... 125 00:09:06,296 --> 00:09:09,340 Mazes and Monsters is a far-out game... 126 00:09:09,841 --> 00:09:12,927 swords, poison, spells. 127 00:09:13,386 --> 00:09:16,723 ...starring future Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks. 128 00:09:16,806 --> 00:09:18,892 JJ, what am I doing here? 129 00:09:19,476 --> 00:09:24,314 [narrator] To be clear, Dungeons & Dragons was never about satanic worship. 130 00:09:24,814 --> 00:09:26,858 It was about storytelling. 131 00:09:26,941 --> 00:09:29,527 And, at the time, a 16-year-old Richard 132 00:09:29,611 --> 00:09:32,322 was eager to combine that love of storytelling 133 00:09:32,405 --> 00:09:34,282 with a new piece of technology. 134 00:09:37,702 --> 00:09:41,956 It was the forerunner of what would become the modern computer 135 00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:44,584 and it was called the teletype. 136 00:09:44,667 --> 00:09:46,252 There was no video display. 137 00:09:46,336 --> 00:09:49,214 It was a spool of paper where you could continue to print 138 00:09:49,297 --> 00:09:52,500 the output from whatever my interaction might be. 139 00:09:53,134 --> 00:09:57,347 Teletypes were used for boring stuff like data processing, 140 00:09:58,560 --> 00:10:00,934 but some people were trying to make games with them 141 00:10:01,170 --> 00:10:03,728 and Richard wanted to give it a shot. 142 00:10:05,210 --> 00:10:08,660 [Richard] The high school I attended actually had two teletypes 143 00:10:08,149 --> 00:10:11,111 and there was no class in the entire school that used it. 144 00:10:11,194 --> 00:10:12,987 No teacher that knew how to use it. 145 00:10:13,530 --> 00:10:17,742 So I convinced the school to let me have that classroom to myself 146 00:10:17,826 --> 00:10:19,452 for one full period every day. 147 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:24,999 The number of options you had were quite limited. 148 00:10:25,792 --> 00:10:29,462 Asterisks for walls, spaces for corridors, dollar signs for treasure, 149 00:10:29,546 --> 00:10:31,464 the capital letter A for a giant ant. 150 00:10:32,715 --> 00:10:36,344 You could move north or south or east or west or maybe pick up that treasure. 151 00:10:36,427 --> 00:10:37,846 Uh, but that was about it. 152 00:10:37,929 --> 00:10:40,682 Every time you would make a move, you'd have to wait ten seconds 153 00:10:40,765 --> 00:10:44,769 to see how the monsters had moved and where you had moved inside the space. 154 00:10:46,187 --> 00:10:49,650 But it worked. The computer could do this work. 155 00:10:49,899 --> 00:10:52,986 It could actually create an experience that, instead of being the game master, 156 00:10:53,690 --> 00:10:55,321 I could actually be a participant in, myself. 157 00:11:04,789 --> 00:11:06,165 I began to sit down and go, like, 158 00:11:06,249 --> 00:11:09,669 "Well, I'm going to write a fantasy game like I'm enjoying playing." 159 00:11:11,880 --> 00:11:15,842 I would create these notebooks of each game as I was writing it. 160 00:11:17,218 --> 00:11:18,803 [narrator] It was a great idea, 161 00:11:19,220 --> 00:11:22,891 but come on, is it really that fun beating up the letter A? 162 00:11:23,641 --> 00:11:26,728 If any computer was going to be a serious gaming machine 163 00:11:26,811 --> 00:11:29,230 for high adventure and fantasy, 164 00:11:29,314 --> 00:11:33,260 then it needed something special that no one had figured out… 165 00:11:33,985 --> 00:11:34,819 yet. 166 00:11:43,328 --> 00:11:46,122 [Roberta] I had no idea how to start to write a game. 167 00:11:47,248 --> 00:11:49,542 But I think I need some big pieces of paper. 168 00:11:50,919 --> 00:11:53,460 And I remember sitting there, pen in hand. 169 00:11:53,463 --> 00:11:54,964 I had never done this before. 170 00:11:56,490 --> 00:11:57,800 So what am I writing? 171 00:11:57,884 --> 00:11:59,427 What is this? What am I doing? 172 00:12:00,303 --> 00:12:02,555 And the first thought that came to my head was, 173 00:12:02,639 --> 00:12:04,182 "What games have I played?" 174 00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:06,935 I came up with the game of Clue. 175 00:12:07,602 --> 00:12:09,604 But it has to be a story, too. 176 00:12:09,687 --> 00:12:11,731 It can't just be just a board game. 177 00:12:16,361 --> 00:12:21,199 I sort of started developing the idea of creating this world to explore 178 00:12:21,282 --> 00:12:22,283 with a flow chart. 179 00:12:26,245 --> 00:12:29,400 Things to do, things to run into. 180 00:12:29,123 --> 00:12:32,293 Characters that come along, and some are good, some are bad. 181 00:12:33,586 --> 00:12:38,925 You have to open up the world so you could feel like you're there. 182 00:12:40,930 --> 00:12:43,638 The way you do that is to give people the decisions 183 00:12:43,721 --> 00:12:44,973 of where they can go. 184 00:12:45,932 --> 00:12:47,725 I was drawing it, 185 00:12:47,809 --> 00:12:49,727 and building it, little by little, 186 00:12:50,228 --> 00:12:53,982 and I could see it develop, and I could add more... 187 00:12:54,649 --> 00:12:55,858 obstacles, 188 00:12:56,567 --> 00:12:57,986 secret passages, 189 00:12:58,690 --> 00:13:01,489 trapdoors, and murders. 190 00:13:05,994 --> 00:13:08,413 When I had written my game, 191 00:13:08,496 --> 00:13:11,165 and it was on this big piece of paper 192 00:13:11,749 --> 00:13:14,200 and I have no place else to go, 193 00:13:14,850 --> 00:13:16,170 because I can't program this. 194 00:13:16,254 --> 00:13:18,600 It's a design document. 195 00:13:18,548 --> 00:13:19,799 I need a programmer. 196 00:13:20,633 --> 00:13:21,592 I need Ken. 197 00:13:23,845 --> 00:13:27,560 Now, meantime, while I'm doing this, 198 00:13:27,932 --> 00:13:30,977 Ken had the idea that he would start this company. 199 00:13:31,686 --> 00:13:34,272 I wanted to build a company that would be kind of a, um, 200 00:13:34,355 --> 00:13:38,317 Microsoft style of background and was hard at work on that. 201 00:13:39,652 --> 00:13:41,404 So, I did a little scheme. 202 00:13:41,487 --> 00:13:43,906 I made reservations for him and I to go to dinner. 203 00:13:44,824 --> 00:13:46,659 Ken always loves to go out to eat. 204 00:13:46,743 --> 00:13:48,703 And he was pleasantly surprised. 205 00:13:49,537 --> 00:13:51,873 And I was in high, high salesman mode. 206 00:13:55,126 --> 00:13:57,628 [Ken] She was talking loudly and people at other tables 207 00:13:57,712 --> 00:13:59,630 were looking at us like we were crazy. 208 00:14:01,716 --> 00:14:03,468 [Roberta] First he was kind of like... 209 00:14:06,137 --> 00:14:08,306 [Ken] 'Cause she was talking about murder 210 00:14:08,389 --> 00:14:11,309 and who was going to die and how they were going to die. 211 00:14:12,685 --> 00:14:14,979 It was just kind of a weird conversation. 212 00:14:16,564 --> 00:14:18,357 [Roberta] Finally, he said, 213 00:14:19,150 --> 00:14:22,779 "Everybody else has already done text interactive stories 214 00:14:22,862 --> 00:14:24,280 or adventure games. 215 00:14:25,323 --> 00:14:26,657 You know what we need to do?" 216 00:14:27,575 --> 00:14:28,534 And I said, "What?" 217 00:14:29,535 --> 00:14:31,204 "We need to go beyond that. 218 00:14:31,788 --> 00:14:33,706 We need to add graphics to it." 219 00:14:34,791 --> 00:14:36,417 And I was like... [gasps] 220 00:14:36,501 --> 00:14:39,450 ..."Oh, my God. Oh, my God. 221 00:14:39,712 --> 00:14:41,547 He's gonna do it. He's gonna do it"  222 00:14:43,132 --> 00:14:45,385 [narrator] There was just one problem. 223 00:14:45,468 --> 00:14:48,304 What Ken proposed had never been done. 224 00:14:49,430 --> 00:14:51,599 [Ken] I love a good technical challenge, 225 00:14:51,682 --> 00:14:54,727 and since computers were new, everything was new and cool. 226 00:14:55,603 --> 00:14:58,220 [narrator] Games back then came on a floppy disk, 227 00:14:58,106 --> 00:15:00,316 the USB drives of their time. 228 00:15:00,900 --> 00:15:04,237 But they only had about 360K of storage. 229 00:15:04,320 --> 00:15:07,782 That's just a few seconds of a streaming song. 230 00:15:07,865 --> 00:15:09,283 Forget about pictures. 231 00:15:09,951 --> 00:15:11,369 These days it would be easy. 232 00:15:11,452 --> 00:15:13,704 I mean, it's-- But it was a different world then. 233 00:15:14,747 --> 00:15:18,840 So rather than just digitizing the pictures, 234 00:15:18,167 --> 00:15:21,879 I had the idea of using the end points of lines as graphics. 235 00:15:24,257 --> 00:15:26,384 That allowed me to fit all the pictures, 236 00:15:26,467 --> 00:15:28,136 the whole game, on one floppy. 237 00:15:30,388 --> 00:15:35,393 Mystery House was the very, very first computer game that had graphics. 238 00:15:35,476 --> 00:15:38,620 It was a huge leap technologically. 239 00:15:41,315 --> 00:15:44,694 [narrator] The images were simple... straightforward, 240 00:15:45,111 --> 00:15:46,529 nothing fancy. 241 00:15:47,196 --> 00:15:51,330 But to see this on a personal computer was a revelation. 242 00:15:51,117 --> 00:15:53,578 This is the beginning of something big. 243 00:15:56,330 --> 00:15:58,499 [narrator] Up until Mystery House was released, 244 00:15:58,583 --> 00:16:01,335 most gamers got their fix at the arcades 245 00:16:02,253 --> 00:16:03,880 or in front of an Atari. 246 00:16:05,923 --> 00:16:09,677 Now, a new player had entered the industry. 247 00:16:10,928 --> 00:16:13,598 My Apple is my manager. 248 00:16:14,515 --> 00:16:17,185 [announcer] There are more people in more places 249 00:16:17,268 --> 00:16:19,604 doing more things with Apples 250 00:16:19,687 --> 00:16:22,607 than with any other personal computer in the world. 251 00:16:22,690 --> 00:16:27,153 [narrator] A machine once relegated to word processing and simple spreadsheets 252 00:16:27,236 --> 00:16:31,407 suddenly became a portal  into a whole new magical realm. 253 00:16:31,490 --> 00:16:35,703 The Apple II would go on to sell over five million units around the world 254 00:16:35,786 --> 00:16:38,800 and set the stage for a new term... 255 00:16:38,206 --> 00:16:39,874 [announcer] The most personal computer. 256 00:16:39,957 --> 00:16:41,250 [narrator] ...the home computer. 257 00:16:42,460 --> 00:16:44,670 [Richard] The Apple II ran a lot faster. 258 00:16:45,171 --> 00:16:49,300 It had a real time video display. There were huge advantages to it. 259 00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:52,929 Immediately I realized instead of just doing a top-down map 260 00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:54,347 like on the teletype, 261 00:16:54,430 --> 00:16:57,934 I could do, in theory, a perspective view into the world. 262 00:17:00,610 --> 00:17:03,105 I actually cleared out the closet of my bedroom, 263 00:17:03,189 --> 00:17:06,734 because I wanted to have a dark, 24-hour-a-day place to sit there 264 00:17:06,817 --> 00:17:08,444 in front of my glowing monitor. 265 00:17:08,527 --> 00:17:12,573 Day and night, continuing to evolve, step-by-step, this game. 266 00:17:15,340 --> 00:17:18,955 [narrator] When it was finally done, Richard named the game Akalabeth 267 00:17:19,380 --> 00:17:23,125 and earned $150,000 in royalties. 268 00:17:23,209 --> 00:17:26,450 Not bad for six weeks of work in high school. 269 00:17:26,796 --> 00:17:28,756 But he still wasn't satisfied. 270 00:17:31,133 --> 00:17:35,513 Akalabeth was a widget, a toy, a piece of self expression 271 00:17:35,596 --> 00:17:37,980 and an exploration. 272 00:17:37,181 --> 00:17:39,558 It was just, what can I do? What is possible? 273 00:17:39,642 --> 00:17:43,229 And Ultima was the first time I sat back and tried to craft 274 00:17:43,729 --> 00:17:46,565 an entire role-playing experience on a computer. 275 00:17:46,649 --> 00:17:51,280 [narrator] Let's pause there for a second and dive into some gaming lingo. 276 00:17:51,112 --> 00:17:52,154 Role playing. 277 00:17:52,655 --> 00:17:55,866 Here to explain role playing games, RPGs for short, 278 00:17:55,950 --> 00:17:58,452 is renowned developer Becky Heineman. 279 00:17:58,536 --> 00:18:00,538 Role playing games are very attractive 280 00:18:00,621 --> 00:18:05,126 because it allows you to play a character of your own creation. 281 00:18:05,209 --> 00:18:10,590 The biggest appeal to this game is that it doesn't create characters for you. 282 00:18:10,673 --> 00:18:12,341 You create the characters. 283 00:18:12,925 --> 00:18:17,972 You play as somebody you would aspire to be, good or bad, 284 00:18:18,431 --> 00:18:20,266 but you can't become in real life. 285 00:18:22,685 --> 00:18:26,772 [narrator] Before RPGs, most popular games followed a formula. 286 00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:30,860 Players control a ship in space, blowing up asteroids. 287 00:18:30,943 --> 00:18:34,238 A ship in space, blowing up space invaders. 288 00:18:34,322 --> 00:18:36,741 No story arc. No exploration. 289 00:18:36,824 --> 00:18:40,770 Just shoot stuff and make it go boom. 290 00:18:40,620 --> 00:18:42,955 But Richard wanted to do something different. 291 00:18:43,748 --> 00:18:45,833 Enter his new game, Ultima, 292 00:18:45,916 --> 00:18:48,628 which was more than just mindless explosions. 293 00:18:52,715 --> 00:18:56,844 [Richard] Some of the ways that Ultima was quite unique back in the 1980s 294 00:18:56,927 --> 00:19:00,598 was that you would start through creating a character. 295 00:19:00,681 --> 00:19:04,602 Your character would have attributes, like strength and dexterity and stamina. 296 00:19:04,685 --> 00:19:05,561 Whatever it might be. 297 00:19:07,271 --> 00:19:09,106 It had characters and story. 298 00:19:09,190 --> 00:19:12,318 It had places where, once you had gone out on a battle and fought, 299 00:19:12,401 --> 00:19:16,238 that you could return to a city or a town, where you could replenish your supplies, 300 00:19:16,322 --> 00:19:18,449 rest up, heal up, those sorts of things. 301 00:19:18,532 --> 00:19:20,785 And so I sort of saw it as a world, 302 00:19:20,868 --> 00:19:24,538 a living, breathing fantasy universe  to play as a player. 303 00:19:25,247 --> 00:19:29,418 [narrator] In an industry that had always assigned players a character to play, 304 00:19:29,502 --> 00:19:32,421 a game like Ultima allowed you to build one. 305 00:19:32,505 --> 00:19:34,548 It created an open world 306 00:19:34,632 --> 00:19:37,968 where you could then venture forth on epic quests 307 00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:42,390 and equip different weapons and armor to aid you on your adventure. 308 00:19:43,641 --> 00:19:44,892 [Richard] With Ultima... 309 00:19:45,393 --> 00:19:48,938 in a very real way, you know, I was finally beginning to flex 310 00:19:49,210 --> 00:19:53,250 a little bit of those game master roots. 311 00:19:55,236 --> 00:19:57,321 You're now being involved in a narrative 312 00:19:57,405 --> 00:20:01,330 where I have laid out the fundamentals of the narrative, 313 00:20:01,117 --> 00:20:03,994 but a lot of the details are filled in by you, the player. 314 00:20:10,334 --> 00:20:14,672 [narrator] To be brutally honest, the game hasn't aged gracefully. 315 00:20:15,423 --> 00:20:16,799 But without this... 316 00:20:17,550 --> 00:20:19,969 you wouldn't have these... 317 00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:22,304 [dramatic music playing] 318 00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:32,220 In a short period of time, creators like Richard and Roberta 319 00:20:32,106 --> 00:20:35,401 had taken computer games from simple text on screen 320 00:20:35,484 --> 00:20:38,487 to crude graphics to character creation. 321 00:20:39,321 --> 00:20:42,741 The genre was evolving, trying to perfect itself 322 00:20:42,825 --> 00:20:47,413 within the limits of technology, and building upon each innovation. 323 00:20:47,955 --> 00:20:51,250 And the next big breakthrough would be found in Japan. 324 00:20:51,333 --> 00:20:52,835 Not at a keyboard... 325 00:20:53,419 --> 00:20:55,796 but at the tip of a paintbrush. 326 00:20:59,675 --> 00:21:01,719 [Amano in Japanese] I'm always imagining things. 327 00:21:03,429 --> 00:21:05,890 I feel like I'm always deep in imagination. 328 00:21:05,973 --> 00:21:08,893 I feel like I'm in that realm, 329 00:21:09,852 --> 00:21:11,228 not in reality. 330 00:21:11,729 --> 00:21:15,941 [narrator in English] Yoshitaka Amano is an artist known for his unique characters. 331 00:21:17,670 --> 00:21:18,402 Early in his career, 332 00:21:18,486 --> 00:21:21,113 he brought them to life in popular anime series 333 00:21:21,197 --> 00:21:23,730 and illustrated manga. 334 00:21:24,992 --> 00:21:28,913 But his style evolved past the cutesy, wide-eyed anime look 335 00:21:30,390 --> 00:21:33,420 and into something otherworldly. 336 00:21:39,423 --> 00:21:43,886 [Amano in Japanese] I thought it would be interesting to draw a fantasy world. 337 00:21:46,514 --> 00:21:49,580 I think it's better to create new characters 338 00:21:49,141 --> 00:21:51,769 based entirely on your own imagination. 339 00:21:52,561 --> 00:21:54,939 There's really no end once you get started. 340 00:21:58,776 --> 00:22:02,196 I think of each character as its own color. 341 00:22:05,533 --> 00:22:08,410 I'll add things when a picture needs a little extra panache. 342 00:22:08,494 --> 00:22:10,746 I'd draw an extra little animal. 343 00:22:10,830 --> 00:22:16,794 You want their defining features to stand out. 344 00:22:21,632 --> 00:22:24,760 The next step is to breathe life into them, so to speak. 345 00:22:30,349 --> 00:22:35,437 [narrator in English] In 1987, Amano would be challenged with an entirely new medium: 346 00:22:36,272 --> 00:22:37,398 video games. 347 00:22:38,649 --> 00:22:43,195 [Amano in Japanese] People didn't really understand what video games entailed. 348 00:22:43,279 --> 00:22:45,698 It had a niche, outsider vibe. 349 00:22:46,282 --> 00:22:49,368 [narrator in English] At the time, the process of designing games 350 00:22:49,451 --> 00:22:51,745 wasn't exactly seen as high art. 351 00:22:52,413 --> 00:22:55,791 But a new project in development piqued Amano's interest. 352 00:22:56,250 --> 00:23:00,421 [Amano in Japanese] Final Fantasy was the first video game I worked on. 353 00:23:00,504 --> 00:23:02,131 It's an imaginary world, 354 00:23:02,965 --> 00:23:05,926 so someone has to create visuals based on their imagination. 355 00:23:06,969 --> 00:23:09,263 [narrator in English] The company behind Final Fantasy 356 00:23:09,346 --> 00:23:12,933 wanted to make an RPG inspired by Ultima, 357 00:23:14,180 --> 00:23:17,688 but they needed an artist's touch to make it stand out. 358 00:23:18,355 --> 00:23:19,982 In stepped Amano. 359 00:23:20,650 --> 00:23:22,568 [Amano in Japanese] And my job was to create characters. 360 00:23:23,485 --> 00:23:26,155 We wanted to create an entirely new world... 361 00:23:27,323 --> 00:23:30,576 with characters that don't exist in the real world. 362 00:23:37,207 --> 00:23:39,376 [narrator in English] There were heroes and monsters, 363 00:23:41,545 --> 00:23:43,964 dark evils and faraway lands 364 00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:47,510 promising adventure and wonder, 365 00:23:47,843 --> 00:23:50,596 but it had to be shrunk down to size. 366 00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:56,393 [Amano in Japanese] My job ends once I've drawn the character on paper. 367 00:23:57,610 --> 00:23:59,813 Then I pass the baton off to someone else. 368 00:23:59,897 --> 00:24:06,737 Someone else drops the characters into the game. 369 00:24:08,113 --> 00:24:12,284 [narrator in English] Amano's fantastical drawings ended up looking like... 370 00:24:13,702 --> 00:24:14,536 this. 371 00:24:16,789 --> 00:24:20,250 [Amano in Japanese] Even if they have short, stubby proportions... 372 00:24:20,334 --> 00:24:22,440 I thought they turned out cute. 373 00:24:22,127 --> 00:24:24,380 Anything becomes cute like this. 374 00:24:24,463 --> 00:24:26,715 [narrator in English] In the beginning, that was okay. 375 00:24:27,216 --> 00:24:31,387 Players could look at a stubby character and, using their imagination, 376 00:24:31,470 --> 00:24:34,223 remember Amano's masterpieces. 377 00:24:34,807 --> 00:24:38,644 These creatures and characters are what gave the original Final Fantasy 378 00:24:38,727 --> 00:24:40,729 its incredible longevity. 379 00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:50,720 Now, there are dozens of sequels, prequels, and spin-offs of the game. 380 00:24:51,699 --> 00:24:54,827 [Amano in Japanese] In the case of a game like Final Fantasy... 381 00:24:56,286 --> 00:24:59,623 the characters evolve with each new game released. 382 00:25:03,252 --> 00:25:05,587 They take on a life of their own. 383 00:25:06,500 --> 00:25:09,425 [narrator in English] They may take on a life of their own, but with each version 384 00:25:09,508 --> 00:25:13,804 of the game, the characters look more and more like Amano's originals. 385 00:25:15,848 --> 00:25:20,561 It was becoming easier to lose yourself in the world of the game. 386 00:25:20,644 --> 00:25:23,856 To feel sympathy for a character when things went wrong, 387 00:25:24,690 --> 00:25:28,861 and suspense and fear when facing down a challenging final boss. 388 00:25:31,488 --> 00:25:32,948 Or, in some cases, 389 00:25:33,310 --> 00:25:36,201 the exhilaration of uncovering some lost treasure. 390 00:25:41,331 --> 00:25:43,167 [man] I've always liked searching things. 391 00:25:44,460 --> 00:25:47,171 When I was a kid I would go to cemeteries, 392 00:25:47,254 --> 00:25:51,341 I would go to old abandoned buildings and find treasure. 393 00:25:52,843 --> 00:25:56,972 [narrator] Like a character from an RPG, Ryan Best is on a mission. 394 00:25:58,390 --> 00:26:01,643 But his quest is unfolding in the real world. 395 00:26:02,227 --> 00:26:05,606 It started 40 years ago, when he taught himself to code 396 00:26:05,689 --> 00:26:07,775 and created a computer role playing game. 397 00:26:09,651 --> 00:26:11,987 But the game has since disappeared. 398 00:26:14,364 --> 00:26:18,702 [Ryan] I've searched all of my hard drives from every source that I knew. 399 00:26:19,828 --> 00:26:22,581 The game's lost to history at this point and... 400 00:26:23,248 --> 00:26:25,459 I'm afraid it's never to be seen again. 401 00:26:26,502 --> 00:26:29,171 [narrator] Ryan's game wasn't a commercial success. 402 00:26:29,254 --> 00:26:32,382 In fact, most people probably have never heard of it, 403 00:26:32,466 --> 00:26:33,717 much less played it. 404 00:26:34,426 --> 00:26:37,513 But for those who did, the RPG was an outlet 405 00:26:37,596 --> 00:26:40,641 both for Ryan and those in his community. 406 00:26:47,981 --> 00:26:51,276 [Ryan] I moved to San Francisco probably in 1988, 407 00:26:52,486 --> 00:26:55,572 and I wanted to get more close to the gay and lesbian center 408 00:26:55,656 --> 00:26:58,330 of San Francisco, which was really big. 409 00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:02,996 You'd see guys walking down the street holding hands 410 00:27:03,789 --> 00:27:05,290 and women doing the same. 411 00:27:06,542 --> 00:27:07,584 It was freeing. 412 00:27:09,419 --> 00:27:11,922 But this was during the AIDS crisis. 413 00:27:12,500 --> 00:27:14,910 And so gay men started dying. 414 00:27:16,510 --> 00:27:18,110 [narrator] It was the late 1980s 415 00:27:18,950 --> 00:27:20,130 and Ryan watched helplessly 416 00:27:20,970 --> 00:27:23,183 as the US government failed to act on the crisis. 417 00:27:23,267 --> 00:27:27,104 I think that abstinence has been lacking in much of the education. 418 00:27:27,563 --> 00:27:29,857 [narrator] And some blamed the victims. 419 00:27:30,524 --> 00:27:33,652 The right wing conservatives really latched onto this 420 00:27:33,735 --> 00:27:37,990 and said that it was God's retribution for being gay. 421 00:27:38,824 --> 00:27:41,243 At the time, we had all of these preachers going on TV 422 00:27:41,326 --> 00:27:43,620 filled with hatred towards the gay and lesbian community. 423 00:27:43,704 --> 00:27:48,959 The gay people are giving their blood knowing that it is contaminating people 424 00:27:49,420 --> 00:27:51,503 and, to me, that is irresponsible and immoral. 425 00:27:53,460 --> 00:27:57,467 Pat Buchanan, he was like enemy number one of the gay and lesbian community, 426 00:27:57,551 --> 00:27:59,303 just for all of the hatred he was spewing. 427 00:27:59,386 --> 00:28:02,389 The homosexuals have declared war on human nature, 428 00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,185 or declared war on human nature, nature's exacting an awful retribution. 429 00:28:08,228 --> 00:28:11,648 And if there's any good that came out of all this hatred, is... 430 00:28:12,566 --> 00:28:16,690 it helped the rest of the community come together and fight. 431 00:28:16,612 --> 00:28:17,654 [chanting] 432 00:28:17,738 --> 00:28:19,489 [Ryan] We had groups protesting. 433 00:28:21,740 --> 00:28:24,411 I really thought of trying to do something else 434 00:28:24,494 --> 00:28:27,164 to really fulfill me internally. 435 00:28:27,748 --> 00:28:30,959 I decided I'm going to do a gay and lesbian role playing spoof. 436 00:28:35,672 --> 00:28:39,900 [narrator] For Ryan, coding was his form of protest. 437 00:28:39,718 --> 00:28:42,950 He called the game GayBlade. 438 00:28:42,971 --> 00:28:44,598 And wow. 439 00:28:46,141 --> 00:28:49,728 [Ryan] The monsters in the dungeon were things like preachers 440 00:28:49,811 --> 00:28:51,104 with bags of money, 441 00:28:51,188 --> 00:28:52,189 rednecks, 442 00:28:52,689 --> 00:28:53,690 giant crabs. 443 00:28:54,316 --> 00:28:59,446 Basically the people and the creatures that in my mind had picked on me. 444 00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,450 'Cause yes, it's true. I had crabs once in high school. [chuckles] 445 00:29:03,533 --> 00:29:05,619 So crabs went into the game. 446 00:29:07,537 --> 00:29:08,747 But giant ones. 447 00:29:08,830 --> 00:29:11,249 Weapons became press on nails. 448 00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:13,627 Until the final scene, 449 00:29:14,586 --> 00:29:17,130 where it's really difficult to win against... 450 00:29:17,631 --> 00:29:18,548 Pat Buchanan. 451 00:29:21,510 --> 00:29:24,846 It was hilarious. It was wacky and funny. 452 00:29:26,390 --> 00:29:29,643 And when I was finished with the game, it was like therapy for me. 453 00:29:31,190 --> 00:29:35,148 A lot of the anger that I'd carried with me for years was gone. 454 00:29:35,232 --> 00:29:38,485 And it was very freeing. 455 00:29:38,986 --> 00:29:42,572 [narrator] GayBlade was a big, fabulous snub to the man, 456 00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:44,449 a catharsis. 457 00:29:44,533 --> 00:29:49,329 It cloaked social issues and morality in the disguise of a fantasy game. 458 00:29:50,872 --> 00:29:54,835 RPGs were allowing players to be their most altruistic self, 459 00:29:55,627 --> 00:29:59,600 but they also allowed inner demons to escape. 460 00:30:03,100 --> 00:30:05,530 [Richard] While I was creating these games, 461 00:30:05,137 --> 00:30:10,170 I assumed and planned that you are the great hero, 462 00:30:10,100 --> 00:30:13,186 who is here to save the world from the great evil. 463 00:30:15,147 --> 00:30:16,398 But when I would watch 464 00:30:16,481 --> 00:30:19,276 what people would be doing to actually play the game, 465 00:30:19,359 --> 00:30:21,820 they were anything but heroic. 466 00:30:25,741 --> 00:30:29,661 The surest path through all the games was not to be the virtuous person, 467 00:30:29,745 --> 00:30:31,955 but was rather to steal from all the shops, 468 00:30:33,290 --> 00:30:35,292 kill all the characters, 469 00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,629 and basically be morally ambiguous at best 470 00:30:39,713 --> 00:30:41,256 to defeat the big, evil bad guy. 471 00:30:41,339 --> 00:30:44,676 But along the way, you were actually being a pretty bad guy yourself. 472 00:30:45,930 --> 00:30:48,138 And that to me was a real shock. 473 00:30:49,222 --> 00:30:50,599 I was somewhat horrified 474 00:30:50,682 --> 00:30:53,310 that I was creating this little band of rogues 475 00:30:53,393 --> 00:30:57,773 that were not living the aspirational virtuous fantasy 476 00:30:57,856 --> 00:30:59,608 I had imagined they were playing. 477 00:31:00,650 --> 00:31:02,611 And so I set out to fix that. 478 00:31:09,159 --> 00:31:14,581 Ultima IV was a radical departure in how I rethought gaming, 479 00:31:14,664 --> 00:31:16,208 frankly from the ground up. 480 00:31:17,959 --> 00:31:20,420 I wanted to write this game that says, you know, 481 00:31:20,504 --> 00:31:23,882 you have to be a person of virtue or you couldn't win the game. 482 00:31:24,549 --> 00:31:26,301 Not only do you have to be a person of virtue, 483 00:31:26,384 --> 00:31:29,471 it's important that it's you, not your alter ego. 484 00:31:29,554 --> 00:31:31,598 If I'm going to judge you harshly, 485 00:31:31,681 --> 00:31:33,517 based upon you deciding to steal from that shop, 486 00:31:34,226 --> 00:31:36,937 I want you to feel like you personally have stolen from that shop. 487 00:31:37,854 --> 00:31:41,483 [narrator] What Richard is talking about is giving the player a conscience 488 00:31:41,566 --> 00:31:42,818 in the game. 489 00:31:42,901 --> 00:31:46,655 And that moral inspiration came from an unlikely place. 490 00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:50,750 No, not there. 491 00:31:51,535 --> 00:31:53,286 No, not there either. 492 00:31:53,954 --> 00:31:55,622 Ah, yes, here. 493 00:31:55,705 --> 00:31:56,957 -[woman] Shh! -[narrator] Oh! 494 00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,626 [whispers] Here, in the library. 495 00:32:05,257 --> 00:32:09,136 [Richard] In my research, I had come across this interesting word. 496 00:32:09,219 --> 00:32:11,346 And that word was "avatar." 497 00:32:11,429 --> 00:32:13,932 If you look up in the encyclopedia the word "avatar," 498 00:32:14,150 --> 00:32:19,354 it's the incarnation on Earth of a deity in human form. 499 00:32:20,814 --> 00:32:22,691 And I thought, "Oh, this is perfect." 500 00:32:22,774 --> 00:32:26,319 It transports you, the perhaps skinny little computer nerd from Earth, 501 00:32:26,403 --> 00:32:29,364 who arrive in my magical world of Britannia, 502 00:32:29,447 --> 00:32:33,493 now as the buff adventurer that you might aspire to be. 503 00:32:33,577 --> 00:32:36,872 But it's still you. This is your avatar. 504 00:32:36,955 --> 00:32:40,375 And that way, you are now responsible for the actions 505 00:32:40,458 --> 00:32:42,544 and deeds of your character. 506 00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,338 [narrator] With Ultima IV, Quest of the Avatar, 507 00:32:45,422 --> 00:32:46,756 Richard had discovered a way 508 00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:51,511 for players to bring their sense of right and wrong from the real world 509 00:32:51,595 --> 00:32:52,971 into the game world. 510 00:32:53,540 --> 00:32:54,389 If you steal from a shop, 511 00:32:54,472 --> 00:32:57,225 you're not going to be able to buy that demon slayer sword 512 00:32:57,309 --> 00:32:59,269 that will be so important later on. 513 00:32:59,352 --> 00:33:00,770 Kill indiscriminately? 514 00:33:01,354 --> 00:33:05,192 Nobody will help you on your quest, and you won't be able to beat the game. 515 00:33:07,527 --> 00:33:10,906 While primitive, the code of conduct the game laid out 516 00:33:10,989 --> 00:33:14,492 would have a huge impact on today's open world games. 517 00:33:15,493 --> 00:33:18,872 In titles like Pillars of Eternity and Skyrim, 518 00:33:18,955 --> 00:33:23,919 the behavior you bring to the game impacts how the experience unfolds. 519 00:33:25,545 --> 00:33:29,466 I really think this was me trying to say, "How can I make Ultima IV important?" 520 00:33:29,549 --> 00:33:33,428 Not just a place to happily waste some time, 521 00:33:33,511 --> 00:33:38,558 but how can I actually make something that is relevant to the individual player? 522 00:33:45,232 --> 00:33:49,569 [Ryan] GayBlade was the first role playing game 523 00:33:49,653 --> 00:33:52,489 that's focused on the LGBTQ community. 524 00:33:55,700 --> 00:33:57,327 The mainstream computer games, 525 00:33:57,869 --> 00:34:00,413 if they have any gay and lesbian characters, 526 00:34:00,997 --> 00:34:03,250 they are always playing a minor part. 527 00:34:04,459 --> 00:34:07,545 It kind of represents how we've all been marginalized. 528 00:34:08,213 --> 00:34:09,756 Almost like we're an afterthought. 529 00:34:11,967 --> 00:34:14,511 I was getting people writing me notes. 530 00:34:15,220 --> 00:34:17,347 In a time of great unhappiness, 531 00:34:17,430 --> 00:34:22,180 they got a little bit of relief, humor and chuckles from playing GayBlade. 532 00:34:22,102 --> 00:34:24,312 And it was amazing how many people 533 00:34:25,210 --> 00:34:26,147 wanted to play it... 534 00:34:27,315 --> 00:34:28,692 ...and wanted more. 535 00:34:29,943 --> 00:34:32,696 [narrator] And then, the craziest thing never happened. 536 00:34:34,322 --> 00:34:36,366 Pat Buchanan heard about GayBlade, 537 00:34:36,866 --> 00:34:38,868 got into his presidential tour bus, 538 00:34:39,619 --> 00:34:41,746 drove across country to San Francisco, 539 00:34:42,539 --> 00:34:44,833 stopped in the Castro to buy some souvenirs, 540 00:34:45,709 --> 00:34:47,961 then showed up at Ryan's door. 541 00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,923 and stole the game, telling Ryan to “pray the gay away” as he left. 542 00:34:52,716 --> 00:34:56,678 But funnily enough, the game made Pat Buchanan realize that he was gay! 543 00:34:57,721 --> 00:35:00,932 And now he's living in Paris with his partner, François, 544 00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,102 and their two Bichons, Coco and Chanel. 545 00:35:05,270 --> 00:35:07,522 Actually, that didn't happen at all. 546 00:35:08,230 --> 00:35:12,360 The truth of how Ryan lost the game is far less colorful. 547 00:35:17,741 --> 00:35:23,790 [Ryan] I lost all my copies of GayBlade in a move from Honolulu to San Francisco. 548 00:35:24,706 --> 00:35:28,835 A shipping company never showed up to pick up the items at my apartment 549 00:35:28,918 --> 00:35:30,545 that I was moving out of, 550 00:35:30,628 --> 00:35:33,340 and I was not going to be able to fly back to Honolulu. 551 00:35:35,759 --> 00:35:40,513 Everything, my master copies, my installation, my source code, 552 00:35:40,597 --> 00:35:41,473 it was all gone. 553 00:35:42,349 --> 00:35:45,352 So I've been searching for it ever since the shipping incident, 554 00:35:45,769 --> 00:35:48,772 and that was 15 years ago. 555 00:35:49,898 --> 00:35:52,400 If it's out there, it would be momentous. 556 00:35:52,484 --> 00:35:55,320 It would be so important and so meaningful to me. 557 00:35:58,657 --> 00:36:01,743 But I recently got some help in my search. 558 00:36:03,620 --> 00:36:06,414 Out of the blue, a woman contacted me 559 00:36:06,498 --> 00:36:10,668 and she was building an archive of computer games 560 00:36:10,752 --> 00:36:13,254 that featured gay and lesbian characters. 561 00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:16,800 And she had sent out the word to all of these different forums. 562 00:36:16,883 --> 00:36:22,847 And it's only been four to six months, but I've noticed websites, Twitter, 563 00:36:22,931 --> 00:36:26,142 different news groups all trying to find GayBlade. 564 00:36:26,851 --> 00:36:29,312 Word began to spread on social media 565 00:36:29,396 --> 00:36:32,607 and a committed online community formed on a joint mission: 566 00:36:33,108 --> 00:36:35,693 the search to find Ryan's lost game. 567 00:36:36,820 --> 00:36:38,363 It blew me away 568 00:36:38,446 --> 00:36:41,199 to have all of these people sending feelers out. 569 00:36:42,283 --> 00:36:44,327 I really feel that if it's out there, 570 00:36:44,953 --> 00:36:46,538 it's going to be found. 571 00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:53,420 [narrator] This outpouring of support shows the power that RPGs have on players 572 00:36:55,130 --> 00:36:56,756 and how far the games have come 573 00:36:57,549 --> 00:36:59,175 from asterisks as walls, 574 00:36:59,717 --> 00:37:02,950 to a fully connected community. 575 00:37:02,720 --> 00:37:07,580 [Richard] I think that role playing games play an incredibly positive role 576 00:37:07,142 --> 00:37:08,101 in society. 577 00:37:10,937 --> 00:37:12,856 It's people from all over the world 578 00:37:13,314 --> 00:37:15,859 who know each other through their avatars 579 00:37:15,942 --> 00:37:20,864 and now have found reason to seek each other out in the real world 580 00:37:20,947 --> 00:37:22,740 and deepen those personal bonds. 581 00:37:23,491 --> 00:37:27,203 [narrator] But before we finish, there's one last detail to wrap up. 582 00:37:52,228 --> 00:37:55,899 A whole new genre and way to play games had emerged. 583 00:37:57,317 --> 00:38:00,320 Choice in what you did, and how you did it, 584 00:38:00,403 --> 00:38:02,280 could actually have consequence. 585 00:38:05,241 --> 00:38:07,350 And, as technology improved, 586 00:38:07,118 --> 00:38:10,246 so did the complexity of the stories they told. 587 00:38:13,750 --> 00:38:17,295 But back on home consoles, a war was brewing. 588 00:38:17,378 --> 00:38:21,174 And a company that had struggled to take on an industry behemoth 589 00:38:21,633 --> 00:38:24,594 started to develop their own secret weapon, 590 00:38:24,677 --> 00:38:28,970 one that was too fast for the naked eye. 591 00:38:30,809 --> 00:38:31,643 [man] Sega!