Video games engulf our very core with gameplay that mystifies us, stories that thrill and amaze us and characters that live forever in our memory. There are so many small hidden stories and facts behind all the games that we have enjoyed and cherished. Let’s look at some of them:

1. The game Sonic Hedgehog has inspired a gene in the human body called SHH (sonic Hedgehog). It is responsible for ensuring all our limbs and organs grow where they are supposed to
2. In Pokemon Red & Blue, the three renowned birds Arcticuno, Zapdos and Moltres actually means “One Two Three” in Spanish! Artic-UNO, Zap-DOS, Mol-TRES as spelled in Spanish.
3. So everybody thought that the video games are actually useless! Here the answer: Studies indicate that surgeons who regularly play video games make 37% fewer mistakes and operate 27% faster than their peers. Source
4. All you people out there who have been often ridiculed for playing too many video games, now it’s to time to answer all your critics. Studies have found that playing video games train the person to swiftly take the correct decisions. Video gamers are also found to be better in multitasking, driving and navigating around the streets. Source
5. If you ever pitied Rockstar’s GTA for getting all the negative reviews, you can save your pity. Because Rockstar games paid to get negative press for its GTA series.
6. The highly successful FPS GoldenEye 007 was developed by a team who had never previously worked for any video games. 8 of 10 of its developers were totally inexperienced in the art of making video games.
7. Steve Wozniak’s (apple co-founder) favorite game was Tetris. So much that, in 1900s, he submitted his high scores to Nintendo Power so many times that they refused to print his scores. So he started sending them under another name, “Evets Kainzow” that is reversed of his name.
8. According to Toru Iwatwani, the creator of Pac-Man, he wanted to create a game that will attract women to play it. And the reason he chose Pac-man as always eating something was because he thought the women were always eating something. Source
9. Robin Willams (famous Hollywood star) is a big fan of video games, so much so that he has named his kids after the character of popular video games – Zelda (The legend of Zelda) and Cody (Final Fight).
10. South Korea has a rule called ‘Cinderella law’ which disallows under-16 gamers to play online video games after midnight.
11. Players of online video game called Foldit decoded the crystal structure of an AIDS structure using the puzzle that had baffled scientists for over 15 years.
12. Nolan Bushnell founder of Atari also founded the famous kid’s fast food chain ‘Chuck E Cheese’ as a way to get kids play Atari arcade games.
13. Gunpei Yokoi, the creator of the Game boy, worked as Janitor in Nintendo. An extending arm made by him to get rid of the boredom caught the eye of Nintendo’s president and finally became super successful toy.
14. A man created a perfect city called ‘Magnasanti’ using Sim City 3000. The city boasts of game’s maximum population of 6 million with no crime and pollution. You can check out its YouTube link here. It took him three years to complete this.
15. Taito’s arcade game, Space Invaders was so successful in japan that rumors have it that it caused a shortage of 100-yen coins.
16. Donkey Kong got the name because Miyamoto thought “donkey” meant “stupid” in English.
17. Gold Farming has been notoriously popular in developing countries. Chinese prisoners clock out 12 hours shifts to make out money for Chinese prison. It was estimated that there were 100,000 full-time gold farmers in China at a point.
18. Blizzard was awarded $88 million in a judgment passed against a woman who operated her own WoW server to sell WoW items. Source
19. Starcraft is so famous in South Korea that the top gamers receive huge salary and prizes to play the game at various competitions.
20. Starcraft is also the first game to been played in space. Daniel Barry took a copy of the game with him on the Space Shuttle mission STS-96 in 1999.
21. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith has made more money for the Aerosmith band than the sale of any of their previous albums.
22. Final Fantasy VII was supposed to be exclusively released for N64, but it proved to be too big to fit the entire game in N64. It might have needed 11-15 cartridges. Eventually, it was ported on PlayStation format.
23. Dragon Quest is so popular in japan, that it is unlawful to release the game on weekdays because that resulted in children bunking their schools and adults taking sickies to ditch work to play it.
24. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokemon, got the idea for super successful game after collecting caterpillars as a child and watching them change into butterflies.
25. Xbox was originally named as DirectX Box as a reference to Microsoft’s graphics API, DirectX.

Got your own gaming facts you’d like to add? Add them in the comments sections below.