Ebook: Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution

A history of video games and a behind-the-scenes look at the industry, from where they're made to who's playing them.

What started as a game of Pong, with little blips dancing across a computer screen, has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry that is changing the future, making inroads into virtually all aspects of our culture. Who are the minds behind this revolution? How did it happen? Where is it headed?

In Smartbomb, journalists Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby take the reader behind the scenes at gaming conventions, into powerhouse think tanks where new games are created, into the thick of the competition at cyberathlete tournaments, and into the homes of gamers for whom playing a role in a virtual world has assumed more relevance and reality than life in the real world.

"The entertaining and vivid Smartbomb brings video games to life in all their bewildering, provocative, and disturbing forms." —The Boston Globe

"Smartbomb explodes with intelligence, insight, and first-rate writing on every page. Here is your future, in all its fascinating, scary, and very human dimensions." —Kevin Baker, author of Paradise Alley

"A surprisingly poignant book." —USA Today