Mental Floss

VIDEO GAMES









Wikimedia Commons

Lawsuits against video game developers and publishers usually arise from copyright infringement, plagiarism, or, in some cases, wrongful death. Most of these lawsuits are settled out of court, but sometimes they go to trial—and the subsequent court decisi

Rudie Obias
Capcom-FC.com

Sometimes gamers are so desperate for mysteries to unlock that they’re willing to just believe about anything to find them.

Rudie Obias






YouTube

Maybe the teams behind these video games just didn't gel. Maybe the creative direction of the games lost momentum. Or maybe trends and tastes changed, rendering these games obsolete. For whatever reason, these 10 games never made it to store shelves.

Rudie Obias


AtariAge.com

In 1983, the gaming company Atari decided to capitalize on the recent success of the hit movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Grossing a total of $359 million in North America alone by the end of its theatrical run, the exciting, kid-friendly adventure seem

Maureen Monahan








YouTube

In late 2011, Andrew Gardikis set a record for a "speed run" on <em>Super Mario Bros.</em> -- this means he played through the entire game as quickly as possible (yes, he used the warp tubes). For that 2011 run, Gardikis calculated his time at 4:58.898,

Chris Higgins
Getty Images

Last month, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft turned 8—which means that kids who started playing it when they were in middle school are now graduating from college. (Excluding the serious players, who will probably need a couple of extra years to

David W Brown

Wikimedia Commons Forty years ago, on November 29, 1972, a startup called Atari announced the release of Pong, a coin operated “video game.” The company’s name was taken from the ancient Japanese board game Go, and vaguely translates as “to hit the mark.

David W Brown

The Game Genie was the technological holy grail of my Nintendo-playing childhood. Here was a device that would let me play Super Mario Bros. with infinite lives, or get infinite rockets in Metroid. Here's exactly how it worked, and how people are still us

Chris Higgins