![]() Iwatani also loved board games (which have been played since the beginning of time, though in 1979, probably meant Payday, Trouble, and Mastermind - or in Japan, more likely Go and e-suguroku, both traditional board games about finding alternate routes to chase down victory across dots and grids). Pinball machines were regularly axed in the 1930s as part of a general citywide ban. Iwatani wasn’t just his father’s son - he also loved pinball games (which were already a hit long before 1979, popularized in a coin-operated form in 1930s Chicago by David Gottlieb, whose company eventually released Qbert* and was later bought by Columbia Pictures, which itself was later bought by Coca Cola, to give you an idea of the heavily incorporated and advertising-laden future that we’re headed into with this column eventually). Pinball & Go planted the seeds for Pac-Man pellets That’s the primordial soup that had been bubbling in Japan since Count Gotō Shinpei said it ought to, that Toro Iwatani’s household must have been steeped in as he grew up and as video games arrived in the mainstream in this, our first stop on what will likely be a long tour. The Japan Broadcasting Corporation, daily, delivered simple and accessible entertainment, thanks to Toru Iwatani’s father, and the latest and greatest in applied technology. Iwatani himself, as a young man, must have grown up around connections and electricity and wires and signals (in the times before those things were commonplace), audio and video and how to connect them and make the lines work, tune in and play things back. That’s why he founded the broadcasting company that employed Tori Iwatani’s father 50 years later in the 1970s. The Count loved innovation and wanted Japan to support it as much as possible. And he was loved for this - he was a man so influential that when he said that the local watchmaker’s timepieces were so finely made that every citizen should be able to have one, they named the watches “Citizen” just for him.Ĭitizen’s origin, the pocket watch from 1924 Was Pac-Man’s design inspired by a watch face? He started technological programs, encouraged those around him to implement new technology and better themselves, and pushed the country he loved to innovate and develop as quickly as they could. He embraced technology in everything he did, and always looked for ways to use it to support the community. ![]() The Count is an interesting fellow - he was not only the seventh mayor of Tokyo, but he was what we would call today a technological evangelist. ![]() The corporation dates back to around 1925 (when “broadcasting” meant mostly radio) and was founded by the well-known and popular politician Count Gotō Shinpei. Toru Iwatani’s father was an engineer for the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. A look back together that will take us from the very beginning of commercial video games up through the long, windy path that gaming has so far taken. It’ll be a series of stories, of short histories, about specific games. While an effort will be applied, we’ll promise nothing definitive or conclusive - we’re on a tour, after all, which is meant to be a vacation, so don’t take it so seriously. We’ll start in 1980 and finish around 2025 (depending on exactly how long it takes to write them up). A look at the most important-slash-most interesting-slash-”this is the one we’re looking at this time and here’s why” games of the year from each year in the history of commercial video games. Let’s take a tour through the history of video games by examining one notable game per year. How Citizen Watches and Pinball Influenced Creator Toru Iwatani
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