The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L. Kent is a comprehensive and enjoyable account of the development of our favorite industry. From the days of coin-op mechanical games and pinball, all the way through the launch of the PS2, Kent covers the maturation of the industry in incredible detail. Weighing in at nearly 600 pages, Kent leaves no stone unturned and no detail left out. However, while the book is dense with information and admittedly lengthy, it manages to read much more like a fast-paced story than a tediously plotted history text.

This readability is no doubt thanks to the book’s greatest asset: it is straight from the horse’s mouth. The book is littered with quotes directly from the people within the industry, and nearly every page features at least one or two block quotes. These are not low-level QA testers or programmers, but the very men who helped to shape the industry: Ralph Baer, Nolan Bushnell, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Hideo Kojima to name just a few. Along with a foreword by Peter Molyneux, these firsthand accounts lend the book immediate credibility, as you are never left wondering where a certain bit of information came from, or what the people involved actually thought at the time – it is right there in front of you.

Another asset working in the book’s favor is that Kent never bogs you down with company detail after company detail, but rather, weaves both the business side of the industry in with the personal side, allowing much space for hilarious anecdotes and tangential stories from the men themselves. Whether it’s a story of Bushnell riding around on a conveyor belt when company executives show up, or members of the Xbox design team almost killing themselves by overcrowding an elevator, Kent spends as much time making you laugh as he does informing you. The only part of the book that slowed down was a large chapter surrounding a number of court battles that spanned the 1970s-90s, though even there, an anecdote or two elicited a laugh.

If there were any criticism that I could lay against the book, it is that it only covers up until 2000, just after the launch of the PS2 and as GameCube and Xbox are in development (by no fault of the book itself as it had to be published sometime). Personally, while I would have liked to learn more about the development of the newer consoles and personalities, this didn’t bother me too much since I have followed the industry more closely since the mid-2000s and know much of this information already.

Overall, Kent’s book is exactly what the subtitle says it is: the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world. Whether you’re a history buff who happens to like games, someone hoping to one day work in the industry, or just a gamer with an appreciation for the industry, you owe it to yourself to read The Ultimate History of Video Games. You won’t regret it.

If you have any questions about the book, or if you’ve read it and would like to leave a comment, go ahead. Thanks for reading!

Below are just some of the people interviewed in the book:

Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari and Chuck E. Cheese

Minoru Arakawa, president, Nintendo of America

Howard Lincoln, chairman, Nintendo of America Gumpei Yokoi, designer, Game Boy

Kaz Hirai, president, Sony Computer Entertainment of America

David Rosen, cofounder, Sega

Peter Moore, former president, Sega of America

Trip Hawkins, founder, EA and 3DO

Alan Miller, cofounder, Activision and Accolade

Greg Fischbach, president, Acclaim

John Romero, cofounder, id Software

Masaya Nakamura, founder, Namco

Hironobu Sakaguchi, president, Square USA

Shigeru Miyamoto, creator, Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, et al

Hideo Kojima, creator, Metal Gear

Ed Boon, creator, Mortal Kombat

Yuji Naka, creator, Sonic the Hedgehog

Toru Iwatani, creator, Pac-Man

Alexey Pajitnov, creator, Tetris

Joel Hochberg, cofounder, Rare Ltd.

Steven Wozniak, cofounder, Apple

Bill Gates, COO, Microsoft

Seamus Blackley, co-designer, Xbox

Michael Katz, former president, Coleco

Steve Russell, creator, Spacewar

Ralph Baer, designer, Magnavox Odyssey

So, yeah, you get it…