Games Britannia: "Joystick Generation"

Joystick Generation is one of the three-part series presented by ‘historian Benjamin Woolley’ about popular games in Britain which ware from the Iron Age to the Information Age, in which he unravels how an apparently trivial pursuit is a rich and entertaining source of cultural and social history.

In this episode of the three part series, Woolley explores the journey games have taken from board games to video game, reflecting the rapidly changing history of modern Britain.

In the 1980s, the power of our imagination was harnessed in early video games, putting the players at the heart of a space adventure they could influence. The British boom years of the 90s introduced characters like ‘Lara Croft’ to a world beyond video games as players started to move into the internet age.

Woolley's investigation leads to the present day, where he finds our morality tested in the world of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and our identity becoming transported to the digital domain with virtual games such as ‘Runescape’ and ‘World of Warcraft’.

I watched the episode here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00phmrs