I have only reviewed one game since I have been writing this column and that was back in February of 1998. But the study and monitoring of the computer game business is important if you want to measure the advancement of technology. Gamers use the latest and the greatest of our current resources and the producers of games have to duke it out in the toughest of technology markets. The writers who monitor the communications technologies have known this all along.
Computer games are a test site for tomorrow's Hi Tech.
Because that is true I wander through the gamer's neighborhoods often. When Age of Empires II was released, I quickly acquired a copy. Many of the changes that have recently migrated through Windows 98 to embed themselves in the latest and greatest version of our operating platform have grown out of the success Microsoft has enjoyed in the world of the Internet game meister. It uses the uses the same interface but travels forward in time from prehistory from prehistory to the first millennium and the time of the development of nation states in Europe. In fact one of the scenarios provided with the game is a simulation of the rise of Frederick Barbosa and the creation of the Holy Roman Empire.