Retro gaming documentary From Bedrooms to Billions to be given out free to schools
Should fit like a Gove with Raspberry Pi and redesigned ICT curriculum.
Every school in the UK will be given the retro-gaming documentary film From Bedrooms to Billions for free.
A partnership with UKIE - the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment - made this happen.
That news arrives as Bedrooms romped successfully to its Kickstarter goal of £18,000. In fact, it's nearly doubled it. But the husband and wife film-making team responsible wants desperately to get to £100,000.
"If we can achieve this all backers will receive a free upgrade of the Special Edition version of the film which, as well as the film, contains an extra two hours of special features and extended interviews!" the Kickstarter page explained.
Hold on a minute - Kickstarter? Wasn't this documentary funded on Indiegogo a year ago? Yes, it was. But that initial funding drive only stretched to the filming. More money is needed now for post-production and to wrap it all up.
From Bedrooms to Billions ventures back in time to 1979, and to the birth of the British video game industry. Did the people responsible for it know what kind of a beast they'd created?
That the film should be distributed free to schools now is an exciting prospect. It arrives amidst a redesigned UK computing curriculum focused on a fundamental understanding of making programs rather than using them. And it arrives as the Raspberry Pi hopefully enables a tiny and cheap programming PC to be in every child's hand.
Potentially, those students learning about the golden age of games in From Bedrooms to Billions could be the people about to kick-off another golden age tomorrow.