Excerpt

Introduction

by Rob Strangman

The book you're holding in your hands is full of nostalgia. It contains the collected memories of people like you and me, people from all walks of life, from all over the world. These are memories that span the last forty-five years, all tied together by the common thread of video games.

When I first began writing Memoirs of a Virtual Caveman back in 2007, I asked for people I knew to contribute their own stories about the memories they had that involved gaming. I thought it would make a nice additional bit of material for the reader, as even if they didn't found anything to relate to in my stories, they'd find something that resonated with them in one of the contributor stories.

Six years later, when writing what became the 2014 edition of Memoirs, I decided I wanted to expand that section, so I invited even more people to contribute stories. A few of the contributor stories from the 2008 edition made it into the 2014 edition, others did not, for one reason or another. I also wanted to include interviews with people I'd met in the video game industry itself, so I added the few interviews I'd already conducted for my various websites over the years to the book. On top of that, I was also able to get some new interviews to include as well.

As time went on, though, I realized that I'd missed including a lot of stories that I'd wanted to tell. I made plans then to release the final edition of Memoirs, but given that the existing edition was close to five hundred pages (and I'm pretty sure no one wants to lug around a gaming memoir that's close to the size of a phone book), I found myself with a dilemma. Memoirs has always been my story, and I wanted to make the book strictly about me, the history of gaming as told through my own experiences, but I didn't want to lose the contributor stories or interviews in the process.

The answer was obvious: split Memoirs into two books. That way, Memoirs could finally be nothing more than my own story, the way I'd originally envisioned it, and the contributor stories and interviews wouldn't be lost to time. However, I didn't want to simply reprint the existing stories and interviews, then call it a day. There are many people I've met since the 2014 edition of Memoirs was released, all with their own stories, so I asked them if they would like to contribute to this then-untitled book. Overall, the answer was an enthusiastic "yes!"

The end result, of course, is this book, Digital Archaeology. If you've read through all the contributor stories and interviews from the 2014 edition of Memoirs, you'll see a lot of familiar names and stories, including a few that came back to contribute new stories to go with their old ones. I've even included a story that's been out of print since 2009, when the original Memoirs was discontinued, as a surprise bonus: Ian Donegan's "Feel The Beat," complete with an update by the author. Of course, you'll see all of those brand new stories as well. Together, they stand as a monument to days gone by, to a time when life seemed so much simpler, and when playing a new game was the most important thing in the world.