Things We Learned About Our Favorite Video Games (Thanks To Fans)

In 2005, a virtual pandemic called the Corrupted Blood incident tore through World of Warcraft to an extent that was well beyond what the programmers originally intended. This resulted in a spread similar to real-world epidemics, and epidemiologists took notice of what was happening. The epidemic first began with a new raid's end boss, Hakkar the Soulflayer. When attacked, Hakkar would fire off a "Corrupted Blood" debuff spell, which only lasted for a few seconds in the area - but it didn't remain there. Due to an oversight, Corrupted Blood spread beyond the area of Zul'Gurub to take on nearly the entire virtual world. This was due to an oversight that allowed a player's pets and minions to carry the disease beyond the area. A pandemic ensued, terminating low-level characters and completely mucking up the gameplay of WoW. Players had to try and avoid the infection while programmers imposed quarantines. Players abandoned cities, and the pandemic nearly brought the game to its knees. Fortunately, a series of patches and world resets brought the game back under the control of the programmers, but it was looking pretty grim for a little while. The incident was studied by epidemiologists to see how people might react to a real-world epidemic, so the game's outbreak had real-world implications. Nina Fefferman and Eric Lofgren, then working at Tufts University, studied the incident and co-authored a paper together - and have since worked on the emergence of COVID-19. Fefferman explained the incident and her research in an interview with PC Gamer: It led me to think really deeply about how people perceive threats and how differences in that perception can change how they behave. A lot of my work since then has been in trying to build models of the social construction of risk perception, and I don't think I would have come to that as easily if I hadn't spent time thinking about the discussions WoW players had in real-time about Corrupted Blood and how to act in the game, based on the understanding they built from those discussions.

Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV is well-known for its extensive radio content, and one station on that list features actual fans. This was done by opening up a website in July 2007 at WKTTRadio.com. Fans who went to the website found a New York-based phone number - (212) 360-2368 - where they could leave a message about what they thought was "wrong with Liberty City, America, Liberals or your health." The fan phone calls were recorded and added to the WKTT radio station within the game.

Typically, licensed video games based on movies are terrible (see E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 for evidence of this). That said, every once in a while, a licensed game manages to break the mold and actually be fun and entertaining. GoldenEye 007 is one such game, but it wasn't just entertaining; it revolutionized the first-person shooter genre and permanently solidified itself in popular culture as one of the best multiplayer games of all time. That's all well and good, but there is one fact about the game that's incredibly surprising. Only nine people made it, which isn't a lot for a game of this scope and magnitude. Even more interesting is the fact that eight of those people had never worked on a video game before in their lives, which makes GoldenEye 007 a rare gem in the video game industry. It's not only an exceptional licensed title, but also an excellent video game made by a small number of people with no experience.

These days, if you want to purchase a game online, it's as simple as clicking a button or tapping your screen. For decades, the primary way a gamer got their hands on a game was to literally get their hands on a physical copy. Of course, it wasn't always like that - not entirely. Back in the 1980s, some computers used cassette tapes to load data. Because they could record an audio signal that the computer translated into something on the screen, it was possible to download games and other programs over the radio. In fact, it wasn't just possible, it was an incredibly popular practice; tons of people tuned in to various radio stations to hear the horrid screeching sound of a new game. Players recorded that onto a cassette, threw it into their Apple II, the Commodore PET, or the TRS-80, and played the game. The concept of doing this first came about when the engineers at a Dutch broadcasting organization, Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, gave it a shot. When it became clear that it was possible, the practice became widespread and popular. In Yugoslavia, a show called Ventilator 202 broadcasted around 150 different computer programs on Radio Belgrade between 1983 and 1986. The first time this was done, radio host Zoran Modli informed his listeners "that for the next few minutes, only hissing and growling would be heard."

Doom was a hugely popular game from the moment it was released, and its popularity became something of a problem. Because it was 1993, and the internet had yet to fully develop into the robust communications network it is today, the massive amount of people downloading and playing multiplayer matches as soon as it was released resulted in university networks crashing. This happened when Doom was released, but the prolonged problem came from huge deathmatch LAN sessions, which taxed the networks further than they could handle. To compensate, universities and companies, including Intel and Lotus Development, had to ban the use of the game. Granted, this was also due to the fact that their employees/students were playing on company/university time, but the strain on the network was something that affected everyone.

If you've played Tetris, you know how focused you can get looking at the blocks and rotating them to ensure they fall precisely where you want them to. What you may not know is that there is a legitimate syndrome called the "Tetris effect," which is derived from that same level of focus. Essentially, the Tetris effect occurs when someone pays so much time and attention to something (like Tetris) to the point that it permeates their thoughts and dreams. As it applies to the game, people who have experienced this tend to observe shapes in the real world, which they then consider how to piece into other things and fit together. It's also possible to see colored shapes where none exist. For others, it's possible to observe shapes against the sky as if you're playing a giant game. This is a form of hypnagogic imagery, and it's incredibly difficult to shake the Tetris effect once it begins.

Shigeru Miyamoto is a legend in the video game community, having created Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda. His work influenced the development of video games for more than 40 years, and he's one of the most valuable assets Nintendo has on its payroll. In Japan, getting around via bicycle is much more common in urban areas than it is in the West, but Miyamoto is prohibited from riding a bike to work. When the game designer was profiled by The New Yorker, it was revealed that his preferred method of commuting was no longer allowed "for his safety and [Nintendo's] peace of mind." Another interesting fact about Miyamoto is that he was knighted in France, becoming the first video game designer to receive such an honor in the country's Order of Arts and Letters.

If you know anything about the Ghostbusters film franchise, you probably know that a third movie has been in various levels of development for years. A number of issues kept Ghostbusters 3 from being made, but according to Dan Aykroyd, the third movie was made - not as a feature film but as a video game. Specifically, it was Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which truly does play out like a movie. It features a great deal of scripted content that brought back the four actors to their original roles. All four of the original cast members (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson) provided their vocal talents and helped write the script. While discussing the game, Aykroyd himself said it was "essentially the third movie," and that's largely due to the fact that it features several elements of what would have been written into a third film. While it may not have the full cinematic gravitas that a feature film projects, it's a great game and an incredible entry in the franchise.

From 2011-2019, Game of Thrones dominated popular culture, but the series never put out an open-world game, which is something fans pretty much expected. The content of George R.R. Martin's fantasy world fit perfectly into the format of an open-world RPG, but it never manifested while the series was on the air. As it happens, there was one in development - well, in pre-development - back in 2006. Bethesda was offered the job to create a game based on the series, but the company turned it down. Instead, Bethesda put its talent to work creating The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. There are plenty of elements in that game that would fit into Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, but Bethesda had other things in mind. Todd Howard, the executive producer of Skyrim, revealed what almost happened and why Bethesda decided to skip developing Westeros into an RPG, saying, “People in our studio liked [Game of Thrones], and it seeped in a bit to what we were doing. We were actually asked a while ago to turn those books into games." He continued with a more detailed explanation: We wanted to do our own world. That’s where we wanted to put our time into. Before we were even making Skyrim, there was a conversation with George R.R. Martin’s people. They thought it would be a good match - and so did we, actually - but then we thought about if that was where we wanted to spend our time. It was tempting, though.

Mario started out as "Jumpman," and after blowing up on Donkey Kong, he made the move to Mario Bros., and then Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. From there, he achieved mascot status and has represented the Nintendo brand ever since. If you stop and think about it for a second, the name "Mario" is rather unusual for a Japanese designer to come up with, but there's a good reason for his naming. He's actually named after Mario Segale, the landlord who managed the warehouse home of Nintendo of America. While working on the US launch of Donkey Kong, the company began to fall short on its rent payments. Representatives from Nintendo and Mr. Segale argued over the money owed, and in the end, the landlord agreed to give them more time to pay up This made it possible for Nintendo to finish working, which kept the business going. As a tribute, the character who eventually became Nintendo's mascot was named "Mario" in his honor. That's the story that has been told around the world for decades, though it's never been confirmed. Another suggests that the president of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa, noticed some physical similarities between Jumpman and Mr. Segale, and that's how the name came about. Regardless of which story is 100% true, the name was derived from Nintendo's relationship with Mr. Segale.

While Grand Theft Auto V may be the highest-grossing video game of all time (so far), it's not the most profitable game ever made. That honor goes to none other than Pac-Man. The difference has a lot to do with the cost of development, the cost of manufacturing and releasing the game, and its longevity (Pac-Man was already 33 years old when GTA V was released in 2013). Pac-Man was released in 1980, and within a decade, the yellow guy had gobbled up 14 billion quarters to score a total revenue of $3.5 billion. Those sales came from approximately 400,000 arcade cabinets. However, Pac-Man didn't suddenly vanish when arcades began to disappear in favor of home consoles; he stuck around. By 2016, Pac-Man earned a combined total of $14 billion across its media franchise. Pac-Man is still found on just about every device capable of playing games, and he's even cost businesses a ton of cash. Back in 2010, Google put up a playable version of the game for its logo on the Google landing page. The number of people who played that mini version of the game is staggering. The average cost of people playing the game (when they should have been working) was calculated to $120,483,800 in lost productivity over a combined total of 4,819,352 hours of gameplay.

If you're an avid gamer who loves playing games from the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, you may have noticed Lynda Carter's name in the credits more than a few times. The actress, who is best-known for playing Wonder Woman on television in the 1970s, has landed a ton of voice-acting roles for those franchises. While she certainly has the talent to land those roles on her own, being married to Robert Altman, the CEO of ZeniMax Media (the parent company of Bethesda), doesn't hurt. She's voiced characters in Rage 2, Fallout 4, Elder Scrolls Online, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls: Bloodmoon, and The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind - all of which are games developed and released by Bethesda.

When Halo 3 was released in 2007, gamers all over the world stayed inside to play it, which was great for the video game industry but bad for the movie industry. On the first day it was released, ticket sales for movies dropped 27%, and film executives laid the blame squarely on Master Chief's shoulders. Halo 3 broke a lot of records when it was released. One such record had the game pull in $170 million on the first day of sales. According to Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco Partners, "The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you'd see in cinemas. This could last for several weeks." Microsoft was neither surprised nor was it apologetic, according to Josh Goldberg, a product manager at Microsoft. He explained, "We marketed it like a film. And now, we're just as big or bigger than film."

If you were stopped on the street and asked to name the best video game character of all time, there's a good chance you would name someone like Mario, Lara Croft, or Kirby. To be fair, there are tons of characters who could take that honor, but it didn't go to any of the ones you'd think when GameFAQs put it to the fans in 2007. Believe it or not, the so-called "Best Video Game Character" is the L-block from Tetris. Yes, the L-shaped block from a puzzle game somehow beat out Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario, and all the rest. GameFAQs threw 128 different video game characters into the contest, and the L-block landed on top.

Pokémon Go was an instant success when it was released, and the game managed to create quite a buzz all over the world. People who never played video games were catching Pokémon in their homes, while walking their dogs, or pretty much anywhere they ventured, and that movement made a difference. Within 30 days of its release, Pokémon Go helped increase activity levels in the United States by 144 billion steps. In 2016, around 25 million Americans got off their couches and increased their activity levels significantly when the game was released. This was determined by researchers who analyzed a great deal of data, which showed that Americans were willing to get up and go - so long as there were Pokémon to catch! The implications for public health elevated the game in importance. The study suggested that for people who continued to remain active at the same levels, "the game could add some 2.8 million years of additional life to US players alone."

When someone mentions the name Osama bin Laden, images of the September 11 attacks come to mind. The man was a terrorist mastermind who launched numerous attacks all over the world, but there's something rather surprising about him most people don't know. He was a gamer and a fan of anime. That's definitely not something most people picture when thinking of the man, but certain items found in his compound during the raid that ended his life indicated the man was a gamer. A hard drive recovered in the raid included Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil, Animal Crossing, New Super Mario Bros., and much more. In addition to the games found on the hard drive, there were complete collections of anime series, including Devil May Cry. He also had a plethora of movies (all illegally pirated, as were the games and anime), which were included In the Footsteps of bin Laden - CNN and CNN Presents World's Most Wanted.

Fallout: New Vegas is one of the best entries in the Fallout franchise, and it's clear the developers put a lot of love into the game. When it came time to create it, Obsidian offered a deal to Bethesda, which included a bonus payment that would only be paid if the game managed to score an 85 or higher on Metacritic. The bonus was significant and would have earned the developers a nice payout, but Fallout: New Vegas didn't manage to achieve the necessary score. According to developer Chris Avellone, "FNV was a straight payment, no royalties, only a bonus if we got an 85+ on Metacritic, which we didn't." Once the Metascore was aggregated by Metacritic, Fallout: New Vegas topped out at 84, missing the needed score by a single point.

The Beatles: Rock Band was a pretty big deal when it was released, as licensing the Beatles' tracks isn't cheap. Still, Harmonix and MTV Games managed to put it together for Electronic Arts - to the delight of Rock Band and Beatles fans. When the game was being developed, it had a working title of Rock Band: Nickleback - a name that was chosen specifically to deflect curiosity in the project. It was believed that the game would be a huge hit, and revealing the development early might have been disruptive. In the end, The Beatles: Rock Band was well-received by fans and critics, but it didn't meet the sales figures projected prior to its release.

Grand Theft Auto V is the highest-grossing video game of all time, and when it was made, it was also the most expensive video game ever made. It cost $265 million to develop and market the game, which made it something of a gamble for Rockstar Games. That's a significant amount of money, but the day GTA V was released, all concern over costs was immediately eased. The game sold all over the world, as eager gamers were desperate to jump into their favorite ride and cause some trouble in the latest GTA title. The game has sold more than 120 million copies. In sales alone, that's $7.2 billion - if the sale price across all systems was $60, which it was at launch. Granted, that's just a rough calculation that doesn't take into account production and distribution costs. In 2018, an article in Esquire put the game's profit at $6 billion. Despite the fact it came out nearly a decade ago, people continue to play it, so it continues to make money. Granted, it isn't just sales that bring in the money for GTA V; there are plenty of microtransactions within the game, and players pony up good money for coveted items. This has helped keep GTA V profitable for Rockstar, and it's one of the main reasons the developer hasn't released a new game in the franchise; it doesn't need to.

When it comes to picking out the media franchise that has taken in the most money, names like Star Wars or something equally massive are usually discussed. In reality, Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time - worth quite a bit more than Star Wars, or anything else. Most of Pokémon's revenue comes from licensed merchandise, which includes toys and plushies of the ridiculously large number of characters in the franchise. Video game sales account for a smaller chunk than you might think, and this is followed by the card game sales, box office revenue, sales of manga, and home video sales. It's actually quite difficult to land on an exact number of how valuable the franchise is, as The Pokémon Company doesn't release a lot of its numbers. Some sources claim the franchise is worth $100 billion, while others put the number a bit lower at $92.12 billion. Still another source lists the total revenue from 1996-2018 at $59.1 billion. While the numbers aren't confirmed, it's clear Pokémon is ridiculously profitable.