I want to build a social network for video games. Not any video games, but specifically mechanically & visually advancing games. So far only the VGIDB (Video game innovation data base, led by Jesse Schell, now dormant) has tried to do this. My genres of choice are action games, which I believe are the most organic form of video games known to man. Games with turn-based components, such as RPGs and visual novels are in my family tree, but I don't trace their ancestry as closely or go into detailed reviews for most of them.
I had to start at the beginning though, with the founder of video games, OXO. In spite of my feelings towards traditional or turn based games, I still choose to spotlight meaningful innovation, and this game, made by a student, the first video format game of all time, was an incredibly meaningful innovation. To achieve this kind of purity in my tree and not open myself up to bias I try to use context, but its an unattainable goal so I've obviously made mistakes along the way. If you feel I've judged your game unfairly, or should incorporate your game in the tree, contact me at silvaring@gmail.com. I would like to incorporate all the great demo's and unreleased games that were made which few people know about, so please help me out with those undiscovered games.
My aim since then was to trace and analyze the family tree of video games, which I believe is a worthwhile endeavour, and one that will go on long after I die when Artifical Intelligence attempts to build a road map of the world prior to its existence. A.I will do a better job than I ever have at understanding genius, but current A.I (not real A.I, but more like collective intelligence via Google like hierarchies) has only gotten us so far, and the web as we know it so far has become an unsanctimonious place, where the cult of unfair celebrity is big as ever.
'you can find your purpose, and you can contribute more meaning than those writers and developers with millions of eyes and hands at their disposal'
'Start at the beginning, true knowledge is sequential, chronological, and evolving. Studying in chronology through sequence is your mantra'
