And it happened almost entirely by accident. Both the game’s creators at the now-defunct studio Neversoft and its producers at Activision knew when they started making Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that they were producing something magical, infused with the same soul as the culture fueling it. They got there only by almost going broke and trying to fix a wreck of a Bruce Willis game first.
After reading this, I spent the morning avoiding work and playing Pro Skater on a PlayStation emulator. Highly recommend you do exactly the same.