Videogames are a big deal. If you don’t agree then you probably wouldn’t be at this Web site. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to get with the program and accept that the industry rivals television, movies and books. Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution, by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby, further reiterates this point. In this young culture there are larger-than-life developers and massively multiplayer games where people escape reality. The best of the best play in tournaments and the first game began as an afterthought.

Most of this information might not be particularly new to hardcore gamers, but the excellent research and fascinating characters demands attention. Each chapter addresses a different subject in the gaming world. The authors manage to condense deep topics into well-paced 30 page chapters that provide all of the information with a very personal view.

Take, for example, the chapter titled “Dallas: First-Person Shooter Capital of the World. A Counter-Strike tournament was held in the Dallas Hyatt Regency. Clans from all over the world arrived in the miserably hot city with hopes of winning the $25,000 grand prize. The organizer has dreams of one day building a gaming coliseum for these tournaments. One of the many spectators wants nothing more than to be competing for the prize. He knows this might never happen because his job doesn’t allow him to put in the necessary hours of practice. All of this is interspersed with the story of the godfathers of the first person shooter: John Carmack and John Romero. It’s essentially a summary of Masters of Doom by David Kushner, but it’s succinct and adds to the events of the three-day tournament. “The war for consumers’ leisure time will be fought for years to come”Professional gaming competitions are just one reason why the industry is a force to be reckoned with. Behind all the games are innovators like Shigeru Miyamoto and Will Wright, who each get their own chapter. The authors accurately note that “getting to spend time with Miyamoto-san is like being granted an interview with the Queen of England” because Nintendo “guards him as if he were their crown jewels.” This is with good reason since Miyamoto is the mind behind their top franchises. He began as an under-achieving kid from Japan’s countryside. The Legend of Zelda was based on a summer he spent exploring a cave near his house. Nobody questions his creativity in the industry, but his focus on kid friendly games caused much speculation to whether Miyamoto lost his touch. Smartbomb came out in 2005, before the release of the Wii, so it’s fascinating to read the negative speculation knowing that Nintendo would later strike gold.

While Miyamoto’s goal is to make interesting worlds that appeal to kids and adults alike, Will Wright is more focused on the contrasts between the realities of the world and what games can do. His ever-expanding series of Sim games explores this duality. All the things he says, at first glance, sound like something a stoner with a philosophy major might say, but he backs up his words with his games. His work for SimEverything, later renamed Spore will address his unique concepts for videogames.

The chapter that best demonstrates where games are headed shows the military’s investment in interactive simulations. Games like America’s Army and Full Spectrum Warrior are just the beginning. Soldiers of the future are going to be totally equipped with the latest electronics. Mike Zyda, one of the minds behind converging simulation with modern videogames, wants to create something like an MMORPG where soldiers can log in during their off-time and interact with soldiers all over the world. The original simulations had enemies representing by circle and triangles. Now they rival anything on the mainstream market.

It’s fitting that Smartbomb shows the launch of two different consoles at the beginning and end of the book. The question that Atari had to deal with was “do people want to play videogames at their home?” With Microsoft, the question was “can our system stand out from the others and penetrate the market?” In just twenty years the market had totally changed, but one thing is certain. The war for consumers’ leisure time will be fought for years to come. Game over? Not likely.