About the Film

Many events have lead a small team of film makers in Australia, Denmark, Canada, and the US to come together to make a documentary on the social history of video games. The one thing we all had in common was not playing video games, but our awareness of Walter Day.

November the 10th Walter Day opened the Twin Galaxies video game arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa. By February 1982 twin Galaxies was tracking video game scores nationally. By December that year it was tracking 170 games internationally. In November 1982 the mayor of Ottumwa’s and the governor of Iowa declared Iowa “The Video Game Capital of the World”. Atari supported this claim. From there numerous video game events surrounded Twin Galaxies and the town of Ottumwa, including a photo shoot for Life magazine of US players, and a video-game championship televised by ABC-TV’s That’s Incredible! Walter Day and the town of Ottumwa now hope to build a video game museum and a video game hall of fame to recognise and protect the cultural significance of video game culture for posterity.

Persistent Productions and its associates are making a documentary film capturing the significant role video games have had across the world. Filming in Wales, England, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, the US, and Cuba interviewing video game competitors, both professionals, and casual players; video game developers of both hardware and software; and video game journalists and critics, to capture the social history of video games and the significant role it is playing in sport, science, and art of the digital age, illustrating Walter Day and the town of Ottumwa’s rational for the desire to protect video game history and acknowledge the significant role video games have had and are are having across the world.

Persistent Productions and its associates believe that the majority of video game documentaries have failed to discuss the positive role of video games in many fields largely by thinking that video games are in a vacuum. Bonuslife: Extended Play hopes to communicate that video games, whether we play them or not, are affecting each new generation more than the last. If the every increasing popularity of video games is to continue they can only become a more integral part of who we are individually and at large. Oddly, the country in which they became so popular has failed to protect this heritage.