An Award-Winning Documentary Series

The Artists is a deep-dive documentary into the first three decades of video game history through the lens of the designers, developers and programmers that lay the groundwork to redefine pop culture as we know it. An energetic, entertaining account of this stunning artistic and business success story, The Artists is the saga of how the games from these pixel pioneers became such an influential cultural force.

Watch the Series Below

*Due to our distribution agreements, the series is available in the US on Topic and in Canada on the CBC.

Episode I: Seeing Farther

Meet the group of rogue programmers who, in the 1980s, decided to elevate computer games to an artform.

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Episode II: The Revolution Will be Digitized

Pong took computer games out of the lab and into the dive bar. Here’s how the runaway success of Atari’s first game led to the company’s eventual downfall.

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Episode III: The Dragon Slayer

Though his industry was becoming increasingly concerned with the bottom line, Chris Crawford understood that video games could revolutionize storytelling.

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Episode IV: The Doom Generation

Doom was a fast-paced and immersive first-person shooter game whose success was the envy of the industry.

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Episode V: Wordsmiths

Before video games could get graphic, text-based adventures imagined the future of literature.

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Episode VI: One More Turn

The history-inspired Civilization games say less about the past than they do about what’s next.

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Episode VII: Come Together

For one programmer, the future of gaming was about more than art. It was a social issue.

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Episode VIII: Searching for Shangri-La

Extending his empire to the small screen, George Lucas built a video-game incubator on his own ranch.

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Episode IX: Dungeons & Doctors

Young doctors-turned-game-designers performed a digital transplant on an iconic role-playing game.

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Episode X: From Then to Now

From the art gallery to the boardroom, video games are going places their inventors never anticipated.

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