Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Why movie soundtracks are recorded out of order
To save on the cost of booking large brass sections, an orchestra may record a triumphant finale and a bouncy menu cue in the same afternoon.
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Why Sega games hired real adult stars
Sega leaned into the adult audience for its macho brawlers by hiring Japanese adult-entertainment stars to appear in-game, pouring drinks and laughing at the…
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Why stealth sections kill action games
Stripping away your weapons and making you creep past guards for 40 minutes turns a fast-paced shooter into a long stretch of slow sneaking.
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Valve found a fortune in everyone else's games
Steam let Valve earn a 30% cut of sales from games made by other studios, alongside its own titles such as Half-Life and Portal.
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One person made Stardew Valley from scratch
Eric Barone handled Stardew Valley's programming, art, music, and design himself over years of development. The same person who decided how farming worked…
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The original Xbox needed a dongle to play DVDs
DVD playback was locked behind a separate infrared receiver that plugged into a controller port.
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Donkey Kong began as a rejected Popeye game
The studio had hoped to use Popeye characters but couldn’t secure the rights, so the arcade game ended up with a plumber and a gorilla instead.
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Sudoku playing grids contain exactly 81 squares
Even 81 squares can feel like an endless numerical maze during a frustrating morning commute.
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Electronic Arts launched a heavily despised online store
To avoid giving digital distributors a cut, EA built its own launcher and required players to use it. Users criticized it as resource-heavy software.
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Pigs learned to steer a video-game cursor with their snouts
Four pigs were trained to move a joystick until a cursor touched a target on a screen. Successful moves earned a reward, and all four performed above chance…
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How to make a car fly in GTA San Andreas
A button sequence activates the flying-car cheat, sending your sedan over San Andreas’s traffic.
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Jaw clenching leads to severe dental enamel degradation
During tense moments, unconscious teeth grinding can wear down enamel and lead to costly dental damage.
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Oblivion made horse armor an argument about real money
The small paid add-on gave players armor for a virtual horse and became a symbol of the new downloadable-content economy. The controversy was about the size…
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PlayStation 4 records exactly fifteen minutes of gameplay
The console continuously keeps a rolling recording of your last 15 minutes of gameplay, overwriting older footage as you play.
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A miniature's thinnest detail can decide how it breaks
A sword, ankle, or projecting finger concentrates stress into a small cross-section. In a brittle resin, a knock can start a crack that grows when the part is…
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Why games make you hunt for hundreds of collectibles
Hundreds of collectibles can mean hours of map-scouring, often for a small reward like an alternate hat color. Completionists may find the hunt worth it—and…
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Sonic Adventure 2 put a real shoe brand into his moves
Sonic wears Soap-branded shoes, whose real-world design supported sliding along rails, and rail grinding became a prominent move in the game. The placement…
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Why movie heroes never have helmet hair
Even after hours under heavy armor, a hero's hair emerges perfectly styled, with every strand ready for its close-up.
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Hearts card game heavily punishes the Queen of Spades
In Hearts, the Queen of Spades carries a hefty point penalty, so players try to avoid taking the trick containing her.
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Why mashing jump can beat a steep hill
Repeatedly jumping while wedged against a near-vertical surface can make the game’s physics push you upward, letting you scale a cliff instead of taking the…
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Bingo originated as a national lottery system in Italy
In the 1500s, Italy ran a state lottery that became the game’s direct ancestor.
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Why Resident Evil made saving a scarce resource
In classic Resident Evil, saving requires limited-use ink ribbons. Run out, and you can’t record your progress, making every death more costly.
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Marcus Fenix spent years in a military prison
He begins Gears of War imprisoned for abandoning his post to attempt an unauthorized rescue of his father during a planetary invasion.
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Overwatch payloads dictate entirely aggressive choke points
Payloads move only when attackers stay close, drawing both teams into a tight, explosive fight around a slow-moving objective.
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