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!