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Atari Age - The Emergence of Video Games in America (Paperback)
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Atari Age - The Emergence of Video Games in America (Paperback)
Series: Atari Age
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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The cultural contradictions of early video games: a medium for
family fun (but mainly for middle-class boys), an improvement over
pinball and television (but possibly harmful) Beginning with the
release of the Magnavox Odyssey and Pong in 1972, video games,
whether played in arcades and taverns or in family rec rooms,
became part of popular culture, like television. In fact, video
games were sometimes seen as an improvement on television because
they spurred participation rather than passivity. These "space-age
pinball machines" gave coin-operated games a high-tech and more
respectable profile. In Atari Age, Michael Newman charts the
emergence of video games in America from ball-and-paddle games to
hits like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, describing their relationship
to other amusements and technologies and showing how they came to
be identified with the middle class, youth, and masculinity. Newman
shows that the "new media" of video games were understood in
varied, even contradictory ways. They were family fun (but mainly
for boys), better than television (but possibly harmful), and
educational (but a waste of computer time). Drawing on a range of
sources-including the games and their packaging; coverage in the
popular, trade, and fan press; social science research of the time;
advertising and store catalogs; and representations in movies and
television-Newman describes the series of cultural contradictions
through which the identity of the emerging medium worked itself
out. Would video games embody middle-class respectability or suffer
from the arcade's unsavory reputation? Would they foster family
togetherness or allow boys to escape from domesticity? Would they
make the new home computer a tool for education or just a glorified
toy? Then, as now, many worried about the impact of video games on
players, while others celebrated video games for familiarizing kids
with technology essential for the information age.
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