No, we’re not talking about Dropout’s hilarious game show Game Changer — we’re talking about Game Changers, a new documentary series on the Discovery Channel and Max.
This documentary series comprises 8 episodes total, with each episode running about 43 minutes in length and covering various topics in the video game industry. For example, one episode explores the origin story of the Call of Duty franchise, while another focuses on the rise and fall of Atari.
To be honest, I haven’t heard anyone talk about this show. I just happened to stumble upon it while browsing Max after watching the excellent Tokyo Vice (highly recommended for anyone looking to watch an intense Yakuza drama!). I needed something new and fresh to watch, and Max had just the thing to offer: This little series about video games.
Nowadays, you can watch dozens of video essays on YouTube discussing the past, present, and future of the video game industry, from the stories of individual games to wider swaths of video game history and beyond. It’s rare to see traditional TV shows that explore the topic, but Game Changers is exactly that. It feels like an old-school documentary you’d see on G4 back in the day — at least it does to me, someone who’d watch G4 basically all day long as a kid (yes, I’m old).
The series features interviews with some of the developers of the games it covers as well as executives, company leaders, and industry historians. This is important because we’re entering a time when many of these seminal developers are getting older. Their stories, if not recorded now, may never be known. I believe this series is doing its part to preserve video game history in its own way.
So far, the stories have been interesting. It dug up things about Nintendo’s history that even I didn’t know as a diehard fan. But it also covers fairly well-known events, such as the crash of the video game industry in 1983 after the release of Pac-Man and E.T. on Atari. This being the case, it may be a retread of much of what you already know about games if you’re someone like me, but occasionally, you can still uncover a nugget of history you didn’t know about, which makes the whole journey worth it.
Personally, I love listening to anything about video games, so this series has been a joy to watch. I recommend it to anyone looking for a quick, fun watch. Though, I will say, the episodes appear to be airing out of order. Each episode ends with a teaser for the next episode, but the following episode won’t follow that teaser for whatever reason. For example, the Atari episode ends with a tee-up of the Nintendo episode, but the first episode that came out was the Nintendo one. Not sure what happened there, but it doesn’t detract from the experience, just an odd curiosity.
My one criticism of the show is that it occasionally repeats itself unnecessarily, and the format is kind of limiting in certain ways. Because the episodes have to be around 40 minutes long (the length of a standard TV show), they sometimes have to sacrifice telling the whole story. This can create gaps in the timeline of events and leave you with a feeling of wanting more, so you should go in knowing you’re only going to get a surface-level understanding of video game history. It doesn’t quite go into the depth you’d get from something like one of Jason Schreier’s books, like his latest all about the history of Blizzard Entertainment, Play Nice.
That said, it’s still an enjoyable watch and perfect to binge over the holidays for anyone who loves video games. If you’re interested in tuning in, the series is currently airing on Tuesdays on the Discovery Channel or on Max.
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