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150-790: Katamari Damacy ( lit.   ' Clump Spirit ' ) is a third-person puzzle-action video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation 2 . It was released in Japan in March 2004 and later in North America in September. Designer Keita Takahashi struggled to pitch the game to Namco's superiors, eventually seeking student aid from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory to develop

300-403: A boss , a proportionally large number of points is usually rewarded. Extra points can be gained from gathering items , such as power-ups or other pick-ups. Usually, when a player gets a certain number of points, they may get an extra life or go on to a higher level . Points can be often used as currency which can be redeemed for rewards and player upgrades. The high score of a video game

450-408: A computer game or just a game , is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick , controller , keyboard , or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device , most commonly shown in a video format on a television set , computer monitor , flat-panel display or touchscreen on handheld devices , or

600-552: A cult classic and one of the greatest video games of all time , praising its gameplay, replay value, humor, originality, and Shibuya-kei soundtrack. A high-definition remaster of the game, Katamari Damacy Reroll , was released on Windows and Nintendo Switch in December 2018, on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2020, and on Google Stadia in September 2021. In a drunken stupor, an eccentric, god-like entity called

750-457: A teletype printer , audio speaker , or similar device. This also distinguished from many handheld electronic games like Merlin which commonly used LED lights for indicators but did not use these in combination for imaging purposes. "Computer game" may also be used as a descriptor, as all these types of games essentially require the use of a computer processor, and in some cases, it is used interchangeably with "video game". Particularly in

900-638: A virtual reality headset . These games are addictive and can lead to the release of dopamine in the addict's synapses. Most modern video games are audiovisual , with audio complement delivered through speakers or headphones , and sometimes also with other types of sensory feedback (e.g., haptic technology that provides tactile sensations). Some video games also allow microphone and webcam inputs for in-game chatting and livestreaming . Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform , which traditionally includes arcade video games , console games , and computer (PC) games ;

1050-699: A $ 1,000 prize to the first gamer who could break George Costanza's fictitious Frogger high score of 863,050 points. On August 1, 1982, the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard issued a colorful poster that listed the world record high scores for more than two dozen arcade video games. The poster was distributed among arcades worldwide. This was the first poster (#1) in a series of colorful posters that continues today, with poster #131 issued in October, 2008. In an episode of Friends , Chandler Bing puts in dirty words on all

1200-549: A DEC PDP-1 computer in 1962. Each game has different means of display: NIMROD has a panel of lights to play the game of Nim , OXO has a graphical display to play tic-tac-toe, Tennis for Two has an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court, and Spacewar! has the DEC PDP-1's vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. These inventions laid the foundation for modern video games. In 1966, while working at Sanders Associates , Ralph H. Baer devised

1350-521: A Western release. Media attention to the game from the Workshop, often called "Namco's snowball simulator", led to more pressure on Namco for a Western release. Takahashi was again invited to come present the game at E3 2004 . Players wanting the game to release in the West also wrote to Namco for a release. That July, Namco officially announced the game's release in North America for September 2004. The game

1500-451: A businessman, waiting for an appointment, rolling up office furniture and staff. The original prototype game's cover artwork featured the large red ball used in tamakorogashi , but for the game's final release, Takahashi developed the game's cover art, showing a large katamari on the verge of rolling over a city, emphasizing the scale of the game. The game was released in Japan on March 18, 2004, priced at about ¥4,000 , roughly two-thirds of

1650-473: A button on the machine. The high score concept changed in July 1978 with the release of Taito 's shoot 'em up Space Invaders , where high scores were determined by gamers playing for as long as they could to stay alive, as high scores kept rising. The popularity of Space Invaders stemmed in part from players returning to beat the current high score, as players could now compete with each other over who had

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1800-568: A camera that can be used to take in-game screenshots. In the two-player mode, a player can choose to play as either the Prince or one of his numerous Cousins. The screen is split vertically; player one on the left and player two on the right. Players compete simultaneously in a small arena to collect the most objects within three minutes. The playing field is replenished with new objects periodically. Players can ram into each other, knocking items from their opponents' katamaris, and if one player leads by

1950-437: A combination of the limitations of the game platform and display device and the program efficiency of the game itself. The game's output can range from fixed displays using LED or LCD elements, text-based games , two-dimensional and three-dimensional graphics, and augmented reality displays. The game's graphics are often accompanied by sound produced by internal speakers on the game platform or external speakers attached to

2100-445: A developer's programming language of choice, or they may opt to also use game development kits that minimize the amount of direct programming they have to do but can also limit the amount of customization they can add into a game. Like all software, video games usually undergo quality testing before release to assure there are no bugs or glitches in the product, though frequently developers will release patches and updates . With

2250-497: A different location, but found that the Namco and Now Production teams worked well together. The full team consisted of about twenty members between the two companies, and Namco had allocated a budget of about ¥100 million (about US$ 650,000–800,000 at the time of production) for the game; this was about the tenth of the cost of budget allocated for Namco's blockbuster titles such as Ridge Racer or Soulcalibur . The full game took

2400-489: A fair amount, then it is possible to roll up the opponent's katamari. Keita Takahashi had studied art and entered the Musashino Art University to study sculpting in 1995. During his studies, he came to a philosophy that his art needed to combine practical elements along with a bit of whimsy and humor. After graduation, Takahashi no longer had the desire to pursue sculpting as a full-time career, and saw

2550-414: A fictional piece of technology from Star Trek , arguing for the video game as a medium in which the player is allowed to become another person, and to act out in another world. This image of video games received early widespread popular support, and forms the basis of films such as Tron , eXistenZ and The Last Starfighter . Ludologists break sharply and radically from this idea. They argue that

2700-432: A game following its initial release. Several games offer players the ability to create user-generated content to share with others to play. Other games, mostly those on personal computers, can be extended with user-created modifications or mods that alter or add onto the game; these often are unofficial and were developed by players from reverse engineering of the game, but other games provide official support for modding

2850-544: A game prototype with the help of other Namco employees, which could potentially be made into a full game. Ozaki suggested to Takahashi that he could have the students of this class create the 3D objects needed to populate his game world. Takahashi took Ozaki's advice, joining the project to help produce the prototype for his game. Alongside about ten students from the Digital Hollywood program, he had been able to gain some visual design artists from Namco to help with

3000-483: A good game idea, who agreed it had potential. The next day, he spoke to his former boss, Mitsutoshi Ozaki, about the concept, further adding a way to reuse the King and Prince characters he had previously proposed, who also agreed it would make for a great game. However, as Takahashi was in Namco's art department and not in game design, there was no easy route for him to propose this idea to Namco's superiors. Ozaki suggested

3150-401: A high score. This has declined in popularity in recent years, as players are often allowed to play for as long as they can without losing, but not given free games even if they achieve a high score. The first video game to use the term "high score" was Midway 's Sea Wolf (1976). The game saved the highest score achieved on the cabinet, but could be reset by a player at any time by pressing

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3300-406: A kind of visual alliteration . The name is officially transliterated as Katamari Damacy in most releases. Game creator Keita Takahashi said that the title suddenly popped into his head from the start and never changed during development. Katamari Damacy enjoyed moderate success in Japan. The game was sold at about two-thirds of the price of a new game at the time. It was the top-selling game

3450-415: A letter dated July 10, 1972. In the letter, Bushnell uses the term "video game" twice. Per video game historian Keith Smith, the sudden appearance suggested that the term had been proposed and readily adopted by those in the field. Around March 1973, Ed Adlum, who ran Cashbox ' s coin-operated section until 1972 and then later founded RePlay Magazine , covering the coin-op amusement field, in 1975, used

3600-504: A limited number of platforms, and exclusivity to a platform or brand is used by platform holders as a competitive edge in the video game market. However, games may be developed for alternative platforms than intended, which are described as ports or conversions. These also may be remasters - where most of the original game's source code is reused and art assets, models, and game levels are updated for modern systems – and remakes, where in addition to asset improvements, significant reworking of

3750-432: A minimum age is used by nearly all systems, along with additional descriptors to identify specific content that players and parents should be aware of. The regulations vary from country to country but generally are voluntary systems upheld by vendor practices, with penalty and fines issued by the ratings body on the video game publisher for misuse of the ratings. Among the major content rating systems include: Additionally,

3900-600: A novel approach for Takahashi through the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory. At the time, Namco had been following in the model that Konami had used in 1997: Konami established the Konami Computer Entertainment School to help educate new game developers which were eventually hired in Konami, and several of the experimental ideas founded by the School during this time became products within

4050-551: A platform, the hardware which contains computing elements, to process player interaction from some type of input device and displays the results to a video output display. Video games require a platform, a specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware and associated software , to operate. The term system is also commonly used. These platforms may include multiple brandsheld by platform holders , such as Nintendo or Sony, seeking to gain larger market shares. Games are typically designed to be played on one or

4200-469: A relatively recent development in the humanities. The two most visible schools in this emerging field are ludology and narratology . Narrativists approach video games in the context of what Janet Murray calls "Cyberdrama". That is to say, their major concern is with video games as a storytelling medium, one that arises out of interactive fiction . Murray puts video games in the context of the Holodeck ,

4350-455: A service . Today, video game development requires numerous interdisciplinary skills, vision , teamwork , and liaisons between different parties, including developers , publishers , distributors , retailers , hardware manufacturers, and other marketers, to successfully bring a game to its consumers. As of 2020 , the global video game market had estimated annual revenues of US$ 159 billion across hardware, software, and services, which

4500-595: A similar version running in a smaller coin-operated arcade cabinet using a less expensive computer. This was released as Computer Space , the first arcade video game , in 1971. Bushnell and Dabney went on to form Atari, Inc. , and with Allan Alcorn , created their second arcade game in 1972, the hit ping pong -style Pong , which was directly inspired by the table tennis game on the Odyssey. Sanders and Magnavox sued Atari for infringement of Baer's patents, but Atari settled out of court, paying for perpetual rights to

4650-412: A small ball and become more complex and full as it got larger. Technically, the team found they could not implement this shrinking mechanic due to memory limitations, and further found that with the interactive music concept, it was not fun to shrink back down and hear the music regress to a simpler form. The shrinking concept as well as the interactive music approach were subsequently dropped. The prototype

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4800-523: A system to play a basic table tennis game on a television screen. With the company's approval, Baer created the prototype known as the "Brown Box." Sanders patented Baer’s innovations and licensed them to Magnavox , which commercialized the technology as the first home video game console , the Magnavox Odyssey , released in 1972. Separately, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney , inspired by seeing Spacewar! running at Stanford University , devised

4950-649: A very high number of points could result in unlockable players or modes. In some games, reaching certain scores gives an extra life , or a continue . In puzzle games, scores are usually gained by solving the puzzles quickly. Higher scores can be gained by performing combos of puzzle solving. There is often a time bonus which can add extra points. The level number is often a multiplier on the points, so higher scores are possible on harder levels. Level multipliers can also be picked up in some games, to further multiply your points bonus. In other games, points are typically gained from defeating monsters and enemies. When defeating

5100-424: A video game are primarily determined by the underlying set of rules, demands, and expectations imposed on the player. While many games rely on emergent principles , video games commonly present simulated story worlds where emergent behavior occurs within the context of the game. The term "emergent narrative" has been used to describe how, in a simulated environment, storyline can be created simply by "what happens to

5250-412: A video game is first and foremost a game, which must be understood in terms of its rules, interface, and the concept of play that it deploys. Espen J. Aarseth argues that, although games certainly have plots, characters, and aspects of traditional narratives, these aspects are incidental to gameplay. For example, Aarseth is critical of the widespread attention that narrativists have given to the heroine of

5400-457: A way to distinguish them from console games , arcade games , or mobile games . Other terms such as "television game", "telegame", or "TV game" had been used in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly for home gaming consoles that rely on connection to a television set . However, these terms were also used interchangeably with "video game" in the 1970s, primarily due to "video" and "television" being synonymous. In Japan , where consoles like

5550-411: A word from Billboard ' s description of movie jukeboxes, Adlum started to refer to this new breed of amusement machine as 'video games.' The phrase stuck." Adlum explained in 1985 that up until the early 1970s, amusement arcades typically had non-video arcade games such as pinball machines and electro-mechanical games . With the arrival of video games in arcades during the early 1970s, there

5700-486: A year and a half to develop, with eight months of prototyping from the Digital Hollywood version. Takahashi said that the team was aiming for four key points in developing the game: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor. Iwatani compared the game to Namco's Pac-Man , which focused on simplicity and innovation and served as a template for future games from the company. At one point during development, Takahashi "proactively ignored" advice from Namco to increase

5850-575: Is a cartoon titled High Score . There is also a book entitled High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games . A 2007 documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters , follows the attempts to beat the high score in Donkey Kong . In an episode of the TV series Seinfeld , George is astonished to find that the Frogger machine he played as a teen still retains his high score. With

6000-431: Is a video game "appears highly eclectic and diverse". The gameplay experience varies radically between video games, but many common elements exist. Most games will launch into a title screen and give the player a chance to review options such as the number of players before starting a game. Most games are divided into levels which the player must work the avatar through, scoring points , collecting power-ups to boost

6150-459: Is frequently a cross-disciplinary field. Video game developers , as employees within this industry are commonly referred to, primarily include programmers and graphic designers . Over the years, this has expanded to include almost every type of skill that one might see prevalent in the creation of any movie or television program, including sound designers , musicians, and other technicians; as well as skills that are specific to video games, such as

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6300-421: Is from 1947—a " cathode-ray tube amusement device " was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U.S. Patent 2455992. Inspired by radar display technology, it consists of an analog device allowing a user to control the parabolic arc of a dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which are paper drawings fixed to

6450-562: Is mostly isolated from the rest of the world due to the government's censorship, and all games published there must adhere to strict government review, disallowing content such as smearing the image of the Chinese Communist Party . Foreign games published in China often require modification by developers and publishers to meet these requirements. Video game development and authorship, much like any other form of entertainment,

6600-447: Is the primary means which one interacts with a video game. The narrative setting does not impact gameplay; a shooter game is still a shooter game, regardless of whether it takes place in a fantasy world or in outer space. An exception is the horror game genre, used for games that are based on narrative elements of horror fiction , the supernatural , and psychological horror . Genre names are normally self-describing in terms of

6750-571: Is three times the size of the global music industry and four times that of the film industry in 2019, making it a formidable heavyweight across the modern entertainment industry . The video game market is also a major influence behind the electronics industry , where personal computer component, console, and peripheral sales, as well as consumer demands for better game performance, have been powerful driving factors for hardware design and innovation. Early video games use interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example

6900-435: Is usually the highest logged point value. Many games will have a list of several high scores, called the high score table or leaderboard . The concept of a high score first achieved cultural significance with the rise in popularity of pinball machines and electro-mechanical arcade games . Players who achieve a high score are often greeted with a congratulatory message and are able to enter their initials or name into

7050-530: The Berne Convention . This typically only applies to the underlying code, as well as to the artistic aspects of the game such as its writing, art assets, and music. Gameplay itself is generally not considered copyrightable; in the United States among other countries, video games are considered to fall into the idea–expression distinction in that it is how the game is presented and expressed to

7200-646: The Clue VCR Mystery Game which required players to watch VCR clips between turns. To distinguish between these two, video games are considered to require some interactivity that affects the visual display. Most video games tend to feature some type of victory or winning conditions, such as a scoring mechanism or a final boss fight. The introduction of walking simulators ( adventure games that allow for exploration but lack any objectives) like Gone Home , and empathy games (video games that tend to focus on emotion) like That Dragon, Cancer brought

7350-699: The GameCube and that it would provide more developer-friendly features in contrast to the previous Nintendo 64 console. Thus, Takahashi's team decided to develop for the GameCube for their prototype even though the final game was expected to be a PlayStation 2 release. In creating the prototype, Takahashi had envisioned that while the ball the player rolled around would grow as they rolled over objects, it would also shrink if they collided with obstacles and lost objects from it. This would have been tied to an interactive music track, which would have started off simple with

7500-458: The King of All Cosmos destroys all the stars, Earth's Moon and other such celestial bodies in the universe, save for Earth itself. Despite acknowledging his mistake, the King charges his five-centimeter-tall son, the Prince, to go to Earth with a "katamari"—a magical ball that allows anything smaller than it to stick to it and make it grow—and collect enough material for him to recreate the stars and

7650-516: The PlayStation 2 . At the time the project started, Sony had just announced the specifications for the console, which was built from the ground-up to support 3D graphics via the Emotion Engine . However, Sony had not provided any updated software development kits , believing that developers would be able to figure out the hardware. As a result, the console was difficult to develop for at its launch. In contrast, Nintendo had recently announced

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7800-555: The United Kingdom and Western Europe , this is common due to the historic relevance of domestically produced microcomputers. Other terms used include digital game, for example, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics . However, the term "computer game" can also be used to more specifically refer to games played primarily on personal computers or other types of flexible hardware systems (also known as PC game ), as

7950-500: The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle ( Entertainment Software Self-Regulation ) would refuse to classify, and thus allow sale, of any game depicting Nazi imagery, and thus often requiring developers to replace such imagery with fictional ones. This ruling was relaxed in 2018 to allow for such imagery for "social adequacy" purposes that applied to other works of art. China's video game segment

8100-483: The crash of the North American video game market in 1983 due to loss of publishing control and saturation of the market. Following the crash, the industry matured, was dominated by Japanese companies such as Nintendo , Sega , and Sony , and established practices and methods around the development and distribution of video games to prevent a similar crash in the future, many of which continue to be followed. In

8250-619: The first-person shooter and the Grand Theft Auto clone , respectively, in the few years after their release. However, at times and more frequently at the onset of the industry, developers would intentionally create video game clones of successful games and game hardware with few changes, which led to the flooded arcade and dedicated home console market around 1978. Cloning is also a major issue with countries that do not have strong intellectual property protection laws, such as within China . The lax oversight by China's government and

8400-409: The game designer . All of these are managed by producers . In the early days of the industry, it was more common for a single person to manage all of the roles needed to create a video game. As platforms have become more complex and powerful in the type of material they can present, larger teams have been needed to generate all of the art, programming, cinematography, and more. This is not to say that

8550-404: The "Make a Star" mode, where the player needs to grow the katamari to a specific size within a given time frame. Other missions have more specific collecting rules, such as collecting as many items (swans, crabs, pairs) as possible within a given time, or collecting the largest item possible (such as a cow or bear). The player can attempt a score attack mode for any level, where the goal is to make

8700-439: The 1950s and 1960s were simple extensions of electronic games using video-like output from large, room-sized mainframe computers . The first consumer video game was the arcade video game Computer Space in 1971. In 1972 came the iconic hit game Pong and the first home console , the Magnavox Odyssey . The industry grew quickly during the "golden age" of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s but suffered from

8850-463: The 1970s and 1980s before having a larger worldwide contribution. Today, the video game industry is predominantly led by major companies in North America (primarily the United States and Canada), Europe, and southeast Asia including Japan, South Korea, and China. Hardware production remains an area dominated by Asian companies either directly involved in hardware design or part of the production process, but digital distribution and indie game development of

9000-527: The 1983 crash, forming around the concept of publisher-developer dichotomies, and by the 2000s, leading to the industry centralizing around low-risk, triple-A games and studios with large development budgets of at least $ 10 million or more. The advent of the Internet brought digital distribution as a viable means to distribute games, and contributed to the growth of more riskier, experimental independent game development as an alternative to triple-A games in

9150-850: The 1990s, all performances would have to be videotaped to verify the achievement. The high score also exists in online games in various forms. The spread of the Internet has made it possible to compete with the rest of the world, rather than the players of a single machine or game. Many modern games have the ability to post his/her high score to a central webpage. Online multiplayer games, especially first person shooters , real time strategies , and role-playing video games often have ranking systems. These new high score lists and ranking systems often are more complex than conventional high score lists. Some are based on tournaments, while others track game servers continuously, keeping statistics for all players. Some games include default "high scores" that do not actually represent real players, but are displayed whenever

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9300-462: The 1993 game . A hierarchy of game genres exist, with top-level genres like "shooter game" and "action game" that broadly capture the game's main gameplay style, and several subgenres of specific implementation, such as within the shooter game first-person shooter and third-person shooter . Some cross-genre types also exist that fall until multiple top-level genres such as action-adventure game . A video game's mode describes how many players can use

9450-631: The 2000s, the core industry centered on " AAA " games, leaving little room for riskier experimental games. Coupled with the availability of the Internet and digital distribution , this gave room for independent video game development (or " indie games ") to gain prominence into the 2010s. Since then, the commercial importance of the video game industry has been increasing. The emerging Asian markets and proliferation of smartphone games in particular are altering player demographics towards casual gaming and increasing monetization by incorporating games as

9600-470: The 2003 Tokyo Game Show (TGS). The demo was critically praised by the press, with GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann describing it as a "good dose of weird fun". Sony expressed strong interest in pushing the game's release forward based on the TGS response, offering to handle the game's promotion in exchange. Sony advertised the game on numerous billboards and posters across Japan, and created an infamous television ad of

9750-460: The 2003 Experimental Gameplay Workshop after seeing it demonstrated at the 2002 TGS, and had been at the 2003 TGS to look for a similar title to exhibit in 2004. Discovering Katamari Damacy as an ideal title to exhibit, the group arranged with Namco to have Takahashi come to the United States to present the game. The press reaction to the session was described as "electric", but they were disappointed to learn from Takahashi that there were no plans for

9900-505: The 20th century, specifically praising the game for its "quirky manipulations of scale" that makes it accessible for all ages. Vice president of marketing for Namco Bandai Games America, Inc. Carlson Choi described the inclusion of Katamari Damacy to the exhibit as "a testament to the creative designs embodied in Namco Bandai's games, in addition to being a validation of video games as a modern form of interactive art". On November 29 of

10050-637: The Internet or other communication methods as well as cloud gaming alleviate the need for any physical media. In some cases, the media serves as the direct read-only memory for the game, or it may be the form of installation media that is used to write the main assets to the player's platform's local storage for faster loading periods and later updates. Games can be extended with new content and software patches through either expansion packs which are typically available as physical media, or as downloadable content nominally available via digital distribution. These can be offered freely or can be used to monetize

10200-531: The King, the Queen, and the Prince of all Cosmos. His idea would have been that the queen had been kidnapped by agents on Earth, and the lazy King sends the Prince to rescue her. To do this, the player would use the diminutive Prince's head, shaped like a hammer, to stun humans, after which the Prince would then "drive" the humans around by putting a steering wheel on the back of the human's head. Takahashi felt this would lead to interesting and creative gameplay, allowing

10350-556: The Konami Games & Music Division (later, Bemani ) that were highly successful, including Beatmania , GuitarFreaks , and Dance Dance Revolution . Namco hoped the Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory would follow a similar path. At the time, Masaya Nakamura was principal of this school, and oversaw one senior thesis class where the students were being trained on 3D modeling towards producing

10500-547: The Moon. The Prince is successful, and the universe is returned to normal. A side-story follows the Hoshino family as the Prince works at his tasks. The father, an astronaut , is unable to go to the Moon after it is wiped out by the King, and the daughter, whose name is Michiru, "senses" the Prince's work—she can feel when each constellation returns to the sky. Ultimately, the family, along with their house and town, are rolled up in

10650-467: The Odyssey were first imported and then made within the country by the large television manufacturers such as Toshiba and Sharp Corporation , such games are known as "TV games", "TV geemu", or "terebi geemu". The term "TV game" is still commonly used into the 21st century. "Electronic game" may also be used to refer to video games, but this also incorporates devices like early handheld electronic games that lack any video output. The first appearance of

10800-770: The U.S. award for "Excellence in Game Design" at the 2005 Game Developers Choice Awards , and G4 awarded Katamari Damacy its "Best Innovation" prize in its G-Phoria of that year. Katamari Damacy was one of the recipients of the 2004 Good Design Award in Japan, the first time a video game has won this award. During the 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded Katamari Damacy with "Outstanding Innovation in Console Gaming" and " Outstanding Achievement in Game Design ", as well as receiving nominations for " Game of

10950-536: The World and Donut County . Katamari Damacy has spawned numerous sequels on the PlayStation 2 and newer game consoles. The game's direct sequel on the PlayStation 2, We Love Katamari , was released internationally in 2005 and 2006. Its story is self-referential , following on the success of the first game, most of the levels are based on requests from newfound fans of the King and the Prince. Though sharing

11100-542: The Year ", "Console Game of the Year", and " Outstanding Achievement in Original Musical Composition ". GameSpot named it the best PlayStation 2 game of September 2004. It later won the publication's year-end "Best Puzzle/Rhythm Game", "Best Original Music" and "Most Innovative Game" awards across all platforms. In 2015, the game placed 13th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2019, it

11250-728: The age of the "one-man shop" is gone, as this is still sometimes found in the casual gaming and handheld markets, where smaller games are prevalent due to technical limitations such as limited RAM or lack of dedicated 3D graphics rendering capabilities on the target platform (e.g., some PDAs ). Video games are programmed like any other piece of computer software. Prior to the mid-1970s, arcade and home consoles were programmed by assembling discrete electro-mechanical components on circuit boards, which limited games to relatively simple logic. By 1975, low-cost microprocessors were available at volume to be used for video game hardware, which allowed game developers to program more detailed games, widening

11400-417: The avatar's innate attributes, all while either using special attacks to defeat enemies or moves to avoid them. This information is relayed to the player through a type of on-screen user interface such as a heads-up display atop the rendering of the game itself. Taking damage will deplete their avatar's health , and if that falls to zero or if the avatar otherwise falls into an impossible-to-escape location,

11550-491: The ball has grown large enough to become a star. Katamari Damacy 's story, settings and characters are highly stylized and surreal , often both celebrating and satirizing facets of Japanese culture . Katamari Damacy received positive reception, becoming a surprise hit and winning several awards. Its success led to the creation of the greater Katamari franchise , and inspired numerous subsequent games imitating its quirky, colorful charm. Some critics have hailed it as

11700-434: The cars in front of them and the obstacle. The programmer never wrote code to specifically create a traffic jam, yet one now exists in the game. Most commonly, video games are protected by copyright , though both patents and trademarks have been used as well. Though local copyright regulations vary to the degree of protection, video games qualify as copyrighted visual-audio works, and enjoy cross-country protection under

11850-483: The complexity of the game. The core gameplay of Katamari Damacy is the subject of U.S. Patent 7,402,104, "Game performing method, game apparatus, storage medium, data signal and program". The patent, issued in 2009, primarily describes how the game maintains the roughly spherical nature of the katamari when objects are picked up, though extends to concepts such as tracking objects collected based on temperature or weight values, which were modes included with later games of

12000-417: The console itself, while peripheral controllers are available as a separate purchase from the console manufacturer or third-party vendors. Similar control sets are built into handheld consoles and onto arcade cabinets. Newer technology improvements have incorporated additional technology into the controller or the game platform, such as touchscreens and motion detection sensors that give more options for how

12150-427: The cost of most major titles at the time. Namco had estimated that the game would sell over 500,000 units in Japan during its first year, and while the game did not make that metric, it had stayed as one of the top ten games sold in Japan through its first nine weeks on the market, with more than 100,000 units sold during that period, which was considered impressive for a new intellectual property . The public reaction to

12300-423: The difficulty for foreign companies to take Chinese entities to court had enabled China to support a large grey market of cloned hardware and software systems. The industry remains challenged to distinguish between creating new games based on refinements of past successful games to create a new type of gameplay, and intentionally creating a clone of a game that may simply swap out art assets. The early history of

12450-434: The game Tomb Raider , saying that "the dimensions of Lara Croft 's body, already analyzed to death by film theorists , are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently... When I play, I don't even see her body, but see through it and past it." Simply put, ludologists reject traditional theories of art because they claim that the artistic and socially relevant qualities of

12600-459: The game 8.5 out of ten with his EGM staff), argue that the game's limitations, such as having "basically ... the same" objective in each level, are made up by its strengths, like "elegant" controls, its soundtrack, and "wicked" humor. As a well-executed, non-traditional game, Katamari Damacy has been influential in the game development community. Since its release, a number of other games have been inspired by Katamari , such as The Wonderful End of

12750-642: The game at the same type. This is primarily distinguished by single-player video games and multiplayer video games . Within the latter category, multiplayer games can be played in a variety of ways, including locally at the same device, on separate devices connected through a local network such as LAN parties , or online via separate Internet connections. Most multiplayer games are based on competitive gameplay, but many offer cooperative and team-based options as well as asymmetric gameplay . Online games use server structures that can also enable massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) to support hundreds of players at

12900-406: The game can also be exploited. On some consoles, cheat cartridges allow players to execute these cheat codes, and user-developed trainers allow similar bypassing for computer software games. Both of which might make the game easier, give the player additional power-ups, or change the appearance of the game. To distinguish from electronic games, a video game is generally considered to require

13050-484: The game should they lose all their lives or need to stop the game and restart at a later time. These also may be in the form of a passage that can be written down and reentered at the title screen. Product flaws include software bugs which can manifest as glitches which may be exploited by the player; this is often the foundation of speedrunning a video game. These bugs, along with cheat codes , Easter eggs , and other hidden secrets that were intentionally added to

13200-575: The game was acclaimed by critics, and was mentioned and praised on TechTV , and was a featured sidebar in the May 2004 edition of Time magazine. Time continued to praise the game in its November 2004 "Best games of the year" special, calling it "the most unusual and original game" for PlayStation 2. Most retailers underestimated the demand for such a quirky game, and only purchased a few copies of this sleeper hit ; it rapidly sold out nationwide, with sales surpassing 120,000 units in North America. It also won

13350-669: The game was positive enough that Namco ordered a sequel by December 2004. At this point, Namco had not considered any Western release for the game. Katamari Damacy was first shown in the United States at the Experimental Gameplay Workshop during the March 2004 Game Developers Conference . A group of Western developers from the International Game Developers Association had previously brought Mojib-Ribbon to

13500-501: The game. Video game can use several types of input devices to translate human actions to a game. Most common are the use of game controllers like gamepads and joysticks for most consoles, and as accessories for personal computer systems along keyboard and mouse controls. Common controls on the most recent controllers include face buttons, shoulder triggers, analog sticks , and directional pads ("d-pads") . Consoles typically include standard controllers which are shipped or bundled with

13650-399: The game. By definition, all video games are intended to output graphics to an external video display, such as cathode-ray tube televisions, newer liquid-crystal display (LCD) televisions and built-in screens, projectors or computer monitors , depending on the type of platform the game is played on. Features such as color depth , refresh rate , frame rate , and screen resolution are

13800-560: The game. Today, many games are built around a game engine that handles the bulk of the game's logic, gameplay, and rendering. These engines can be augmented with specialized engines for specific features, such as a physics engine that simulates the physics of objects in real-time. A variety of middleware exists to help developers access other features, such as playback of videos within games, network-oriented code for games that communicate via online services, matchmaking for online games, and similar features. These features can be used from

13950-485: The growth of the size of development teams in the industry, the problem of cost has increased. Development studios need the best talent, while publishers reduce costs to maintain profitability on their investment. Typically, a video game console development team ranges from 5 to 50 people, and some exceed 100. In May 2009, Assassin's Creed II was reported to have a development staff of 450. The growth of team size combined with greater pressure to get completed projects into

14100-551: The high score made it nearly ubiquitous and a defining feature for many games. Magazines such as Nintendo Power and Sega Visions would often publish high scores submitted by their readers. The high score became most popular when, starting in 1982, the Twin Galaxies Scoreboard began to appear in the pages of Video Games Magazine, Joystik Magazine , Computer Games Magazine , VideoGiochi Magazine, Video Games Player Magazine and Electronic Fun Magazine. Later, in

14250-517: The high score positions on a Ms. Pac-Man machine. He then finds out that they are not blanked when the machine is reset, so he has to break all his high scores to remove the offending words. (This is not possible on an actual Ms. Pac-Man machine; such machines only record one high score and do not allow the winning player to enter initials.) According to the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, "high-score" attempts enjoyed as much press coverage as any other video game–related topic reported in

14400-446: The highest score. In December 1978, Exidy 's Star Fire allowed the player to save their name as initials next to their high score. Since this data was stored in the machine's RAM , it was deleted every time the machine lost power, which in practice would almost invariably happen every night as operators preferred to leave the machines unplugged when the arcade was closed to avoid incurring unnecessary power costs. The popularity of

14550-586: The idea of games that did not have any such type of winning condition and raising the question of whether these were actually games. These are still commonly justified as video games as they provide a game world that the player can interact with by some means. The lack of any industry definition for a video game by 2021 was an issue during the case Epic Games v. Apple which dealt with video games offered on Apple's iOS App Store . Among concerns raised were games like Fortnite Creative and Roblox which created metaverses of interactive experiences, and whether

14700-474: The katamari that is used to remake the Moon. The player controls the Prince as he rolls the katamari around houses, gardens, and towns in order to meet certain parameters set by the King of All Cosmos. The player uses the two analog sticks on the DualShock controller in a manner similar to the classic arcade game Battlezone to control the direction the katamari rolls. Other controls can be triggered by

14850-401: The katamari, the katamari will grow, eventually allowing objects that were once hurdles to be picked up, and creating access to areas that were formerly blocked. In this manner, the player might start the game by picking up thumbtacks and ants, and slowly work up to the point where the katamari is picking up buildings, mountains, and clouds. The typical mission given by the King of All Cosmos is

15000-412: The katamari. This allows slender objects, such as pencils, that are longer than the katamari is wide, to be picked up, and these will alter how the katamari rolls until more objects are picked up. Animals such as cats will chase the katamari, knocking things from it, but once the katamari is great enough, it will scare the animals away, and they can be rolled up once they are chased down. As objects stick to

15150-450: The larger " AAA " game studios, and are often experiments in gameplay and art style. Indie game development is aided by the larger availability of digital distribution, including the newer mobile gaming market, and readily-available and low-cost development tools for these platforms. Although departments of computer science have been studying the technical aspects of video games for years, theories that examine games as an artistic medium are

15300-718: The larger game and the individual experiences themselves were games or not in relation to fees that Apple charged for the App Store. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers , recognizing that there was yet an industry standard definition for a video game, established for her ruling that "At a bare minimum, video games appear to require some level of interactivity or involvement between the player and the medium" compared to passive entertainment like film, music, and television, and "videogames are also generally graphically rendered or animated, as opposed to being recorded live or via motion capture as in films or television". Rogers still concluded that what

15450-403: The largest katamari possible in the time allotted. Certain levels can unlock an "eternal mode" by creating an exceptionally large katamari. In eternal modes, the player can explore the level with no time limit. Each level features two secret items that can be found. The first item is a royal present that contains an object that the Prince can wear. Most gifts are non-functional, but one includes

15600-417: The late 2000s and which has continued to grow as a significant portion of the video game industry. Video games have a large network effect that draw on many different sectors that tie into the larger video game industry. While video game developers are a significant portion of the industry, other key participants in the market include: The industry itself grew out from both the United States and Japan in

15750-510: The late 2000s has allowed game developers to flourish nearly anywhere and diversify the field. Score attack In video games that feature scoring, points are usually an optional, side component of gaming. Players may achieve points through normal gameplay, but their score will often not have an immediate relevance to the game itself. Instead, playing to beat a "high score" set by the game program, another player or oneself becomes an extra challenge, adding replay value . In modern gaming,

15900-452: The latter also encompasses LAN games , online games , and browser games . More recently, the video game industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablet computers ), virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud gaming . Video games are also classified into a wide range of genres based on their style of gameplay and target audience . The first video game prototypes in

16050-543: The machine's memory is reset, often with generic initials such as "AAA." These scores often represent certain levels of achievement for a player to aspire to, ensuring that there is always something for players to compete with. Many video games also have default high scores built in, sometimes attributed to fictitious entities (e.g. Commander Keen ) or to members of the game's development team. The high score's prominence in video game culture and even mainstream society has led to various pieces of art and entertainment. There

16200-411: The machine. Their score and name will remain there until someone "knocks" them off the high score list by achieving a higher score. For this reason, high scores are inherently competitive and may sometimes involve one-upmanship against other players. The high score has a close association to the "free game." When in an arcade, many games will offer a player a free chance at another game if they achieve

16350-682: The major content system provides have worked to create the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), a means to streamline and align the content ratings system between different region, so that a publisher would only need to complete the content ratings review for one provider, and use the IARC transition to affirm the content rating for all other regions. Certain nations have even more restrictive rules related to political or ideological content. Within Germany, until 2018,

16500-462: The market to begin recouping production costs has led to a greater occurrence of missed deadlines, rushed games, and the release of unfinished products. While amateur and hobbyist game programming had existed since the late 1970s with the introduction of home computers, a newer trend since the mid-2000s is indie game development . Indie games are made by small teams outside any direct publisher control, their games being smaller in scope than those from

16650-405: The market. Due to loss of publishing control and oversaturation of the market, the North American home video game market crashed in 1983 , dropping from revenues of around $ 3 billion in 1983 to $ 100 million by 1985. Many of the North American companies created in the prior years closed down. Japan's growing game industry was briefly shocked by this crash but had sufficient longevity to withstand

16800-491: The media during the 1982–1985 period. Though the media was often focused on the amazing growth of the video game industry, it was equally as fascinated with the human side of gaming, as typified by the "player vs. machine" showdowns that led to new world record high scores set on nearly a daily basis. In fact, Twin Galaxies reports that during that early era it was not unusual for there to be multiple new world records reported in

16950-774: The original game and possibly from scratch is performed. The list below is not exhaustive and excludes other electronic devices capable of playing video games such as PDAs and graphing calculators . Early arcade games, home consoles, and handheld games were dedicated hardware units with the game's logic built into the electronic componentry of the hardware. Since then, most video game platforms are considered programmable, having means to read and play multiple games distributed on different types of media or formats. Physical formats include ROM cartridges , magnetic storage including magnetic-tape data storage and floppy discs , optical media formats including CD-ROM and DVDs , and flash memory cards. Furthermore digital distribution over

17100-421: The owners wanting to get rid of it, George decides to keep the machine for posterity, the catch being that he has to move the game without unplugging it, because if he unplugs the game the high score will be erased. Unfortunately, the machine is destroyed when he unsuccessfully tries to move it across the street in a spoof of the gameplay . On September 24, 2005, Twin Galaxies issued Poster #59, which publicized

17250-472: The patents. Following their agreement, Atari made a home version of Pong , which was released by Christmas 1975. The success of the Odyssey and Pong , both as an arcade game and home machine, launched the video game industry. Both Baer and Bushnell have been titled "Father of Video Games" for their contributions. The term "video game" was developed to distinguish this class of electronic games that were played on some type of video display rather than on

17400-409: The platform, as directed by the game's programming. This often will include sound effects tied to the player's actions to provide audio feedback, as well as background music for the game. Some platforms support additional feedback mechanics to the player that a game can take advantage of. This is most commonly haptic technology built into the game controller, such as causing the controller to shake in

17550-399: The player interacts with the game. Specialized controllers may be used for certain genres of games, including racing wheels , light guns and dance pads . Digital cameras and motion detection can capture movements of the player as input into the game, which can, in some cases, effectively eliminate the control, and on other systems such as virtual reality, are used to enhance immersion into

17700-502: The player that can be copyrighted, but not the underlying principles of the game. Because gameplay is normally ineligible for copyright, gameplay ideas in popular games are often replicated and built upon in other games. At times, this repurposing of gameplay can be seen as beneficial and a fundamental part of how the industry has grown by building on the ideas of others. For example Doom (1993) and Grand Theft Auto III (2001) introduced gameplay that created popular new game genres,

17850-403: The player to create havoc as the Prince followed the misguided suggestions from the King, but the project leader rejected the idea. Action Drive was eventually cancelled. While working on other projects, Takahashi continued to try to think of game ideas, seeking to grow beyond being just an artist for Namco. Takahashi cited two concepts that led to the inspiration of Katamari Damacy . The first

18000-441: The player to gain a quick burst of speed, flip the Prince to the other side of the katamari and more. Objects that are smaller than the katamari will stick to it when the player comes into contact with them, while greater objects can be hurdles; colliding at high speed with any may cause objects to fall off the katamari, slowing the player's progress. The game uses size, weight, and surface area to determine if an object will stick to

18150-433: The player will lose one of their lives . Should they lose all their lives without gaining an extra life or "1-UP" , then the player will reach the " game over " screen. Many levels as well as the game's finale end with a type of boss character the player must defeat to continue on. In some games, intermediate points between levels will offer save points where the player can create a saved game on storage media to restart

18300-419: The player's hands to simulate a shaking earthquake occurring in game. Video games are frequently classified by a number of factors related to how one plays them. A video game, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres . However, unlike film or television which use visual or narrative elements, video games are generally categorized into genres based on their gameplay interaction, since this

18450-430: The player." However, emergent behavior is not limited to sophisticated games. In general, any place where event-driven instructions occur for AI in a game, emergent behavior will exist. For instance, take a racing game in which cars are programmed to avoid crashing, and they encounter an obstacle in the track: the cars might then maneuver to avoid the obstacle causing the cars behind them to slow or maneuver to accommodate

18600-450: The potential to become involved in video games as a means to continue his art interest in a larger medium. Joining Namco as an artist around 1999, Takahashi worked on a number of smaller projects for the publisher. One of these was called Action Drive , inspired by Crazy Taxi but with more spy-based elements atop the driving gameplay. During this, Takahashi came up with the ideas of the characters that would be central to Katamari Damacy :

18750-625: The presence of a score is not as ubiquitous as it was in the past. During the era of arcade games , when, because of the technical limitations of the time, games could not be "won" or "completed" but were instead endless cycles of continuous gameplay , points had a much greater relevance. Many modern games no longer keep track of scores, and many no longer feature an option to save or record high scores. However, some games, such as role-playing games , have experience points , skill points , and use money or treasure , which can all be used to buy or upgrade skills and objects. In fighting games , scoring

18900-533: The project for less than US$ 1 million. As director, Takahashi emphasized concepts of novelty, ease of understanding, and enjoyment. The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars , constellations , and Moon , which were inadvertently destroyed by his father, the King of All Cosmos . This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to human beings to mountains, until

19050-410: The prototype but had difficulty in getting any game development engineers, due to the low priority of the school. He was fortunate to find that some of the engineers from Namco's arcade game division were going to be laid off, and he was able to convince three of them to join his team to retain their jobs within Namco. One initial difficulty faced in developing the prototype was their choice of platform,

19200-450: The question of what are the essential factors of a video game that separate the medium from other forms of entertainment. The introduction of interactive films in the 1980s with games like Dragon's Lair , featured games with full motion video played off a form of media but only limited user interaction. This had required a means to distinguish these games from more traditional board games that happen to also use external media, such as

19350-557: The same mechanics, We Love Katamari introduces new gameplay features, such as co-operative play, and new goals, such as collecting the most valuable objects, that would continue through its sequels. On July 29, 2012, the game was included in an exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art , entitled "Century of the Child: Growing by Design". Here, the game was used to demonstrate the change in toys and "playthings" over

19500-637: The same time. A small number of video games are zero-player games , in which the player has very limited interaction with the game itself. These are most commonly simulation games where the player may establish a starting state and then let the game proceed on its own, watching the results as a passive observer, such as with many computerized simulations of Conway's Game of Life . Most video games are intended for entertainment purposes. Different game types include: Video games can be subject to national and international content rating requirements. Like with film content ratings, video game ratings typing identify

19650-506: The same year, the game was included in the permanent collection of video games of the Museum of Modern Art. Curator Paola Antonelli selected Katamari Damacy among the first fourteen games to be displayed in the museum, which was chosen according to a variety of criteria, including "visual quality, elegance of the code and design of playing behavior". A high-definition remaster of the game made with Unity , titled Katamari Damacy Reroll ,

19800-544: The scope of what was possible. Ongoing improvements in computer hardware technology have expanded what has become possible to create in video games, coupled with convergence of common hardware between console, computer, and arcade platforms to simplify the development process. Today, game developers have a number of commercial and open source tools available for use to make games, often which are across multiple platforms to support portability, or may still opt to create their own for more specialized features and direct control of

19950-617: The screen. Other early examples include Christopher Strachey 's draughts game, the Nimrod computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain ; OXO , a tic-tac-toe computer game by Alexander S. Douglas for the EDSAC in 1952; Tennis for Two , an electronic interactive game engineered by William Higinbotham in 1958; and Spacewar! , written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell , and Wayne Wiitanen's on

20100-510: The series. The music in Katamari Damacy was widely hailed as imaginative and original (winning both IGN 's and GameSpot 's "Soundtrack of the Year 2004" awards) and was considered one of the game's best features. The soundtrack was released in Japan as Katamari Fortissimo Damacy . Its eclectic composition featured elements of traditional electronic video game music, as well as heavy jazz and samba influences ( Shibuya-kei ). Most of

20250-518: The short-term effects, and Nintendo helped to revitalize the industry with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America in 1985. Along with it, Nintendo established a number of core industrial practices to prevent unlicensed game development and control game distribution on their platform, methods that continue to be used by console manufacturers today. The industry remained more conservative following

20400-484: The target age group that the national or regional ratings board believes is appropriate for the player, ranging from all-ages, to a teenager-or-older, to mature, to the infrequent adult-only games. Most content review is based on the level of violence, both in the type of violence and how graphic it may be represented, and sexual content, but other themes such as drug and alcohol use and gambling that can influence children may also be identified. A primary identifier based on

20550-405: The term "video game" emerged around 1973. The Oxford English Dictionary cited a 10 November 1973 BusinessWeek article as the first printed use of the term. Though Bushnell believed the term came from a vending magazine review of Computer Space in 1971, a review of the major vending magazines Vending Times and Cashbox showed that the term may have come even earlier, appearing first in

20700-502: The term in an article in March 1973. In a September 1982 issue of RePlay , Adlum is credited with first naming these games as "video games": "RePlay's Eddie Adlum worked at 'Cash Box' when 'TV games' first came out. The personalities in those days were Bushnell, his sales manager Pat Karns, and a handful of other 'TV game' manufacturers like Henry Leyser and the McEwan brothers. It seemed awkward to call their products 'TV games', so borrowing

20850-522: The tracks were composed by Yuu Miyake , and many feature vocals from popular J-pop singers, such as Yui Asaka from the Sukeban Deka 3 TV series, and anime voice actors , including Nobue Matsubara and Ado Mizumori. One track is sung and written by Charlie Kosei , composer of the Lupin III soundtrack. A single-level demonstration of the final version of Katamari Damacy was exhibited at

21000-503: The type of gameplay, such as action game , role playing game , or shoot 'em up , though some genres have derivations from influential works that have defined that genre, such as roguelikes from Rogue , Grand Theft Auto clones from Grand Theft Auto III , and battle royale games from the film Battle Royale . The names may shift over time as players, developers and the media come up with new terms; for example, first-person shooters were originally called "Doom clones" based on

21150-422: The video game industry, following the first game hardware releases and through 1983, had little structure. Video games quickly took off during the golden age of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s, but the newfound industry was mainly composed of game developers with little business experience. This led to numerous companies forming simply to create clones of popular games to try to capitalize on

21300-566: The week of its release with 32,000 units sold, and sold over 155,000 copies in Japan by the end of 2004. However, Namco originally estimated that over 500,000 units would be sold in Japan. The game was not released in PAL territories such as Europe and Australia since publishers thought it was too "quirky" for these markets; Electronic Arts picked up both sequels, We Love Katamari and Me & My Katamari , for release in Europe. In North America

21450-430: Was a prototype shown by Sony Computer Entertainment called Densen (Japanese for "power line") that had the player as a young girl traverse floating islands of various homes connected by power lines. The game, though never released, gave Takahashi the idea that the ordinary world could be made interesting with only small changes to perception, and that a game could be fun without the need to cause violence. The second idea

21600-503: Was completed within about six months, in time for the year's Japan Media Arts Festival for exhibition. Takahashi also presented the game for an internal review, leading Namco to green light the game's full development. Full work on Katamari Damacy began in late 2001. Namco assigned Now Production , based in Osaka , to help bring the game to the PlayStation 2. Takahashi was initially concerned about having to work with an external studio in

21750-489: Was from the game of tamakorogashi played in Japanese school's undōkai or sports days . In tamakorogashi , students attempt to push a giant ball into a goal. Both those ideas led to him thinking of a game where spinning a ball would roll ordinary objects into it, making the ball larger and larger over time. The evening he conceived of this idea, he spoke to a friend, one of the game designers in Namco, to see if it made for

21900-434: Was initially some confusion in the arcade industry over what term should be used to describe the new games. He "wrestled with descriptions of this type of game," alternating between "TV game" and "television game" but "finally woke up one day" and said, "What the hell... video game!" While many games readily fall into a clear, well-understood definition of video games, new genres and innovations in game development have raised

22050-456: Was made available on March 4, 2021, and a Stadia version was released worldwide on September 7 the same year. In a retrospective in 2019, Edge noted that playing the game 15 years after its initial release reveals how influential the game has been for independent games following it, and added that Takahashi's game is "playful and tremendously funny, deeply weird and a game with real heart". Video game A video game , also known as

22200-474: Was never officially released in Europe, though its subsequent sequels would receive European releases. In the Japanese language , Katamari ( 塊 ) means "clump" or "clod" and Damashii is the rendaku form of tamashii ( 魂 ) which means "soul" or "spirit". Therefore, the phrase approximates to "clump spirit". The two kanji that form the name look similar (sharing the same right-side element 鬼 ), in

22350-493: Was ranked 49th on The Guardian newspaper's The 50 Best Video Games of the 21st Century list. Although the game has rapidly achieved a cult following and has been praised by many reviewers, it also has its share of criticism. A common complaint is that the game is relatively short and repetitive—it can be completed in under ten hours, and the gameplay stays virtually the same all the way through. However, others, such as Electronic Gaming Monthly reviewer Mark McDonald (who gave

22500-816: Was released on the Nintendo Switch and Windows on December 7, 2018. Known as Katamari Damacy Encore in Japan, it is the first title in Bandai Namco Entertainment 's Encore series of remasters. The game includes support for the Switch's gyro controls in addition to its traditional control scheme. Reroll was nominated for the Freedom Tower Award for Best Remake at the 2020 New York Game Awards. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were released in Japan on November 19, and worldwide on November 20, 2020. A version for Amazon Luna

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