I played Assassin’s Creed , where running through Renaissance Italy or Ancient Egypt felt like walking through a digital museum. It was more than entertainment; it was a living, breathing history lesson .

The video game world was awash with money in the early 2000s. New investors had flooded the market, chasing exponentially profitable blockbusters made by non-unionized hobbyists working with budgets less than the cost of craft services for a Harry Potter movie—take Grand Theft Auto III (2001), made for 5 million USD, which grossed over 250 million ... See more