October 2014
Selector: Nina Fawaz
Additional contributor: Alex Hanner
“If you're too young to remember the Time Before Pong, then you probably can't appreciate the momentousness of its arrival. Bear in mind the game emerged in a very different world. It was a time before home computers, cable television, cell phones, game consoles, the Internet--everything we take for granted today. For many of my formative years, we still watched TV in black and white, and had to get up to change the channel. This was the technological Dark Ages. Had we been less culturally enlightened, we would have denounced Pong as witchcraft and burned its inventors at the stake. For those of us who were there--who had never played, let alone seen, a video game--we knew we were witnessing something extraordinary, a groundbreaking achievement in home entertainment. However, none of us knew that we were participating in the birth of a revolution.”
― Devin C. Griffiths, Virtual Ascendance: Video Games and the Remaking of Reality
The Art of Video Games Exhibition
An exhibition by the Smithsonian American Art Museum which run from March through September 2012. The exhibition was designed to highlight the evolution of art within the video gamemedium over its forty-year history.
Gaming Sites
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PC GamerPC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries. The magazine features news on developments in the video game industry, previews of new games, and reviews of the latest popular PC games, along with other features relating to hardware, mods, "classic" games and various other topics.
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PolygonPolygon is an American video game website that publishes news, culture, reviews, and videos. he site sought to distinguish itself from competitors by focusing on the stories of the people behind the games instead of the games themselves. They also produced longform magazine-style feature articles, invested in video content, and chose to allow their review scores to be updated as the game changed.
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GamespotGameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on certain video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition to the information produced by GameSpot staff, the site also allows users to write their own reviews, blogs, and post on the site's forums. The forums are partially shared with those on GameFAQs, another website owned by CNET.
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IGNIGN (formerly Imagine Games Network) is an entertainment website founded by publishing executive Jonathan Simpson-Bint in September 1996, which focuses on video games, films, music and other media. The company is based in San Francisco, California. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment; including major video game platforms, and other forms of entertainment such as television, comic books, and films.
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The EscapistThe Escapist is an online magazine covering mostly video games as well as movies, comics, TV, and more. It is one of the top providers of well-written, stimulating editorials, and famous for its humorous outlook on video game culture. By far the most infamous feature of The Escapist though, is Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s Zero Punctuation video review series. Reportedly quadrupling the site’s traffic upon its implementation, Zero Punctuation takes a droll look at a current game release, usually focusing heavily on its negative aspects. More like comedy pieces than serious reviews, Yahtzee’s videos have nonetheless proven influential, and are frequently acknowledged by developers and publishers.
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Giant BombGiant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes personality driven gaming videos, commentary, news and reviews, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media. It was originally started up with the intention of putting the fun back into games coverage, while maintaining a high degree of professionalism. Giant Bomb is credited being an innovator within video game journalism, avoiding many of its downfalls and continuing growth where other companies in the medium have had to downsize or close down completely.
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Pocket GamerPocket Gamer is a video game website that focuses on handheld video games. The publication covers all major portable and mobile gaming formats, including iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone, PlayStation Vita and the various versions of the Nintendo DS, and was one of the first to actively cover the iPhone and iPod Touch gaming markets. As well as the website, the publication hands out awards for handheld games to recognize them in several categories. The British newspaper The Guardian periodically syndicates a list of recommended mobile video games from Pocket Gamer in their own newspaper, especially the list of recommended games for each month.
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Quarter to ThreeThe Quarter to Three website itself excels in producing analytic, informal feature articles, game diaries and reviews. The regular podcasts are a particular highlight, with a format that resembles a group of (clearly knowledgeable) friends just sitting around and casually chatting about a variety of interesting topics. Named after the early hours that are often seen during a dedicated gaming session, Quarter to Three is a relaxed site that will appeal those belonging to the more hardcore end of the gamer spectrum.
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Retro GamerRetro Gamer is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retro video games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Although launched in January 2004 as a quarterly publication, Retro Gamer soon became a monthly. The first 18 issues of the magazine came with a coverdisk. It usually contained freeware remakes of retro video games and emulators, but also videos and free commercial PC software such as The Games Factory and The Elder Scrolls: Arena. The magazine celebrated its 100th issue in March 2012, which included a reprint of the very first issue.
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Gamesindustry.bizAimed entirely at those either in, or hoping to break into the gaming industry, GamesIndustry International is all about the business side of things. primary focus is on up-to-date coverage of industry news, although it frequently publishes a number of interesting editorials that are written from an industry perspective. The site’s Jobs section is also stocked full of listings, with placements at developers and publishers of all sizes.
Digital Distribution in Video games
Digital distribution is the process of delivering video game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media. Currently, the process is dominated by online distribution over broadband internet. Today, each of the current main consoles (Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3) has its own digital distribution platform to sell games exclusive to digital formats and digital versions of retail games. The main advantages of digital distribution over the previously dominant retail distribution of video games include significantly reduced production, deployment, and storage costs. The increasing prevalence of digital distribution has allowed independent ("indie") game developersto sell and distribute their games without having to negotiate deals with publishers. No longer required to rely on conventional boxed sales to see profit, independent developers have seen success though the sale of games that would not normally be accepted by publishers to distribute. Examples of digital distribution platforms are Steam, Origin, and Xbox Live Marketplace. Digital distribution is the dominant method of delivering content on mobile platforms such as iOS devices and Android phones.
Print Books
These books and others are available for checkout at the Video Games Display in the Purdy Kresge Library . The display will run through the month of October, 2014.
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Exodus to the Virtual World by Call Number: GV 1469.15 .C393 2007ISBN: 0230607853Publication Date: 2008-11-11Virtual worlds have exploded out of online game culture and now capture the attention of millions of ordinary people: husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, workers, retirees. Devoting dozens of hours each week to massively multiplayer virtual reality environments (like World of Warcraft and Second Life ), these millions are the start of an exodus into the refuge of fantasy, where they experience life under a new social, political, and economic order built around fun. Given the choice between a fantasy world and the real world, how many of us would choose reality? Exodus to the Virtual World explains the growing migration into virtual reality, and how it will change the way we live - both in fantasy worlds and in the real one. -
From Sun Tzu to Xbox by Call Number: U 310 .H26 2006ISBN: 1560256818Publication Date: 2006-05-31Part of an industry that now earns more yearly than the Hollywood box office, video games have entered the forefront of the militarization of popular culture. How did this once-innocent pastime become a key player in America’s entry into global warfare? And is this blurring of reality changing the way we think about war? Stretching from 3000 BC to today, this book investigates how military cultures and the evolution of games have been closely linked, from video gaming’s ancestors like chess and go, to the popularization of the 19th century Kriegspiel, to the development of computers for use during World War II and the invention of video games by Defense Department-funded scientists. Readers will discover how war fantasies played out from the early arcade years to the rise of online gaming, how the military began working with companies like Nintendo, Atari and Microsoft to produce training devices, and how today’s generals hope to sell recruitment to a new generation of joystick warriors. -
Minds in Play by Call Number: LB 1028.66 .K34 1994ISBN: 0805815139Publication Date: 1994-11-01Video games more than any other media have brought technology into children's homes and hearts. Educators, psychologists, and parents are struck by the quality of engagement that stands in stark contrast to children's usual interest in school homework and other activities. Whereas most research efforts have concentrated on discussing the effects of game playing, this book takes a different stance. It takes a close look at games as a context for learning by placing children in the roles of producers rather than consumers of games. Kafai presents a constructionist vision of computer-based learning activities in schools. She follows a class of sixteen fourth-grade students from an inner-city public elementary school as they were programming games in Logo to teach fractions to third graders. The children transformed their classroom into a game design studio for six months, learning programming, writing stories and dialogues, constructing representations of fractions, creating package designs and advertisements, considering interface design issues, and devising teaching strategies. In this context, programming became a medium for children's personal and creative expression; in the design of their games children engaged their fantasies and built relationships with other pockets of reality that went beyond traditional school approaches. The ideas and discussions presented in this book address educators, researchers, and software and curriculum designers interested in children's learning and thinking with educational technologies. -
Women and Gaming by Call Number: LB 1029 .S53 G44 2010ISBN: 0230623417Publication Date: 2010-04-15Today, virtual worlds abound, avatars are every day occurrences, and video games are yesterday’s news. But today’s games are not just a pastime for millions – they are also a technological focal point for new forms of learning. James Paul Gee and Elisabeth Hayes are leading researchers in the field of gaming, and here they argue that women gamers—a group too often marginalized—are at the forefront of today’s online learning world. By utilizing the tools of gaming in ways never before imagined - actively engaging in game design, writing fan fiction, and organizing themselves into collaborative learning communities - women of all ages acquire the tools to successfully navigate the complex social, cultural , and economic problems of the 21st century. Women are leading the way to a new understanding of online learning techniques, from cultural production to learning communities to technical proficiency in the latest software. This book draws on case studies about women who “play” the Sims, the best selling game in history, to argue for a new general theory of learning for the 21st Century. -
Play Money by Call Number: GV 1469.15 .D53 2006ISBN: 0465015360Publication Date: 2007-09-11Play Money explores the remarkable new phenomenon of MMORPGs, or Massively MultiPlayer Online Role-Playing Games, in which hundreds of thousands of players operate fantasy characters in virtual environments. With city-sized populations, these games generate their own cultures, governments, and social systems and, inevitably, their own economies, which spill over into the real world. The desire for virtual goods-magic swords, enchanted breastplates, and special, hard-to-get elixirs-has spawned a cottage industry of “virtual loot farmers”: people who play the games just to obtain fantasy goods that they can sell in the real world. The best loot farmers can make between six figures a year and six figures a month. Play Money is an extended walk on the weird side: a vivid snapshot of a subculture whose denizens were once the stuff of mere sociological spectacle but now-with computer gaming poised to eclipse all other entertainments in dollar volume, and with the lines between play and work, virtual and real increasingly blurred-look more and more like the future.
eBooks
eBooks are available online by clicking on the title of the book; WSU access ID and password required.
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The Art of Videogames by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 1405187883Publication Date: 2009-09-28The Art of Videogames explores how philosophy of the arts theories developed to address traditional art works can also be applied to videogames. Presents a unique philosophical approach to the art of videogaming, situating videogames in the framework of analytic philosophy of the arts Explores how philosophical theories developed to address traditional art works can also be applied to videogames Written for a broad audience of both philosophers and videogame enthusiasts by a philosopher who is also an avid gamer Discusses the relationship between games and earlier artistic and entertainment media, how videogames allow for interactive fiction, the role of game narrative, and the moral status of violent events depicted in videogame worlds Argues that videogames do indeed qualify as a new and exciting form of representational art -
Digital Culture by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 033522198XPublication Date: 2008-12-01Everything you need to know about new media in one accessible, easy to navigate volume! FromFacebookto theiPhone, fromYouTubetoWikipedia, fromGrand Theft AutotoSecond Life- this book explores new media’s most important issues and debates in an accessible and engaging text for newcomers to the field. With technological change continuing to unfold at an incredible rate,Digital Culturesrounds-up major events in the media’s recent past to help develop a clear understanding of the theoretical and practical debates that surround this emerging discipline. It addresses issues such as: What is new media? How is new media changing our lives? Is new media having a positive or negative effect on culture and human communication? Each chapter contains case studies which provide an interesting and lively balance between the well-trodden and the newly emerging themes in the field. Topics covered include digital television, digital cinema, gaming, digital democracy, mobile phones, the World Wide Web, digital news, online social networking, music and multimedia, virtual communities and the digital divide. Digital Culturesis an essential introductory guide for all media and communication studies students, as well as those with a general interest in new media and its impact on the world around us. -
Vintage Games by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 0240811461Publication Date: 2009-02-18Vintage Games explores the most influential videogames of all time, including Super Mario Bros., Grand Theft Auto III, Doom, The Sims and many more. Drawing on interviews as well as the authors' own lifelong experience with videogames, the book discusses each game's development, predecessors, critical reception, and influence on the industry. It also features hundreds of full-color screenshots and images, including rare photos of game boxes and other materials. Vintage Games is the ideal book for game enthusiasts and professionals who desire a broader understanding of the history of videogames and their evolution from a niche to a global market. -
Gamers at Work by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 1430233516Publication Date: 2012-01-30There are few companies in the video-game industry that have withstood the test of time; most startups exit as quickly as they enter. In Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play, the countless challenges of building successful video-game developers and publishers in this unstable industry are explored through interviews containing entertaining stories, humorous anecdotes, and lessons learned the hard way. Gamers at Work presents an inside look at how 18 industry leaders play the odds, seize opportunities, and transform small businesses into great businesses. Here, in Gamers at Work, you will find their stories replete with their personal struggles, corporate intrigue, and insights into strategy, leadership, and management. Gamers at Work: Explores the formation of entertainment software companies from the perspectives of successful founders who played the odds Provides insight into why experienced professionals sacrifice the comfort of gainful employment for the uncertainty and risk of the startup Shares the experiences and lessons that shape the lives, decisions, and struggles of entrepreneurs in this volatile business Featured Entrepreneurs: Trip Hawkins, Electronic Arts (Madden NFL) Nolan Bushnell, Atari (Pong) Wild Bill Stealey, MicroProse Software (Sid Meier''s Civilization) Tony Goodman, Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires) Feargus Urquhart, Obsidian Entertainment (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II) Tim Cain, Troika Games (Arcanum, Vampire: the Masquerade-Bloodlines) Warren Spector, Junction Point Studios (Disney Epic Mickey) Doug & Gary Carlston, Broderbund Software (Prince of Persia, Carmen Sandiego) Don Daglow, Stormfront Studios (Neverwinter Nights, Tony La Russa Baseball) John Smedley, Verant Interactive (EverQuest, PlanetSide) Ken Williams, Sierra On-Line (King''s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry) Lorne Lanning, Oddworld Inhabitants (Oddworld) Chris Ulm, Appy Entertainment (FaceFighter, Trucks & Skulls) Tobi Saulnier, 1st Playable (Kung Zhu, Yogi Bear) Christopher Weaver, Bethesda Softworks (The Elder Scrolls) Jason Rubin, Naughty Dog (Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted) Ted Price, Insomniac Games (Spyro, Resistance) -
Video Game Spaces by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 0262141019Publication Date: 2008-12-05The move to 3D graphics represents a dramatic artistic and technical development in the history of video games that suggests an overall transformation of games as media. The experience of space has become a key element of how we understand games and how we play them. In Video GameSpaces, Michael Nitsche investigates what this shift means for video game design and analysis.Navigable 3D spaces allow us to crawl, jump, fly, or even teleport through fictional worlds that come to life in our imagination. We encounter these spaces through a combination of perception and interaction. Drawing on concepts from literary studies, architecture, and cinema, Nitsche argues that game spaces can evoke narratives because the player is interpreting them in order to engage with them. Consequently, Nitsche approaches game spaces not as pure visual spectacles but as meaningful virtual locations. His argument investigates what structures are at work in these locations, proceeds to an in-depth analysis of the audiovisual presentation of game orlds, and ultimately explores how we use and comprehend their functionality. Nitsche introduces five analytical layers--rule-based space, mediated space, fictional space, play space, and social space--and uses them in the analyses of games that range from early classics to recent titles. Here visits current topics in game research, including narrative, rules, and play, from this new perspective. Video Game Spaces provides a range of necessary arguments and tools for media scholars,designers, and game researchers with an interest in 3D game worlds and the new challenges they pose. -
Racing the Beam by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 026201257XPublication Date: 2009-01-09The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market so completely that "Atari" became the generic term for a video game console. The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the flexibility of changeable cartridges. Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which established new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed and accessible study of this influential video game console from both computational and cultural perspectives. Studies of digital media have rarely investigated platforms--the systems underlying computing. This book (the first in a series of Platform Studies)does so, developing a critical approach that examines the relationship between platforms and creative expression. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost discuss the Atari VCS itself and examine in detail six game cartridges: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. They describe the technical constraints and affordances of the system and track developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. Adventure, for example, was the first game to represent a virtual space larger than the screen (anticipating the boundless virtual spaces of such later games as World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto), by allowing the player to walk off one side into another space; and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was an early instance of interaction between media properties and video games. Montfort and Bogost show that the AtariVCS--often considered merely a retro fetish object--is an essential part of the history of videogames. -
The Game Audio Tutorial by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 0240817265Publication Date: 2011-03-15Design and implement video game sound from beginning to end with this hands-on course in game audio. Music and sound effects speak to players on a deep level, and this book will show you how to design and implement powerful, interactive sound that measurably improves gameplay. If you are a sound designer or composer and want to do more than just create audio elements and hand them over to someone else for insertion into the game, this book is for you. You'll understand the game development process and implement vital audio experiences-not just create music loops or one-off sound effects. -
Vintage Game Consoles by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 0415856000Publication Date: 2014-02-07Vintage Game Consoles tells the story of the most influential videogame platforms of all time, including the Apple II, Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, Sony PlayStation, and many more. It uncovers the details behind the consoles, computers, handhelds, and arcade machines that made videogames possible. Drawing on extensive research and the authors' own lifelong experience with videogames, Vintage Game Consoles explores each system's development, history, fan community, its most important games, and information for collectors and emulation enthusiasts. It also features hundreds of exclusive full-color screenshots and images that help bring each system's unique story to life. Vintage Game Consoles is the ideal book for gamers, students, and professionals who want to know the story behind their favorite computers, handhelds, and consoles, without forgetting about why they play in the first place - the fun! Bill Loguidice is a critically acclaimed technology author who has worked on over a dozen books, including CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer, written with Boisy G. Pitre. He's also the co-founder and Managing Director for the popular Website, Armchair Arcade. A noted videogame and computer historian and subject matter expert, Bill personally owns and maintains well over 400 different systems from the 1970s to the present day, including a large volume of associated materials. Matt Barton is an associate professor of English at Saint Cloud State University in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where he lives with his wife Elizabeth. He's the producer of the "Matt Chat," a weekly YouTube series featuring in-depth interviews with notable game developers. In addition to the original Vintage Games, which he co-authored with Bill, he's author of Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games and Honoring the Code: Conversations with Great Game Designers. -
Changing the Rules of the Game by Call Number: Electronic ResourceISBN: 0230303536Publication Date: 2013-10-25Few industries fit the description of high turbulence and high velocity better than the computer games industry. Relatively young, rapidly evolving, and frequently experiencing disruptive innovation, its potential for growth and new business opportunities seems barely exhausted. And indeed, in the current economic climate this industry seems positively recession-proof. Those making and those playing games use digital technology to share an enthusiasm for the industry's products that we rarely find elsewhere. This fascination with computer games and gaming and the economic significance of the industry make it one of the most remarkable socio-cultural phenomena of our world. As the industry emerges, we become more aware of the need to trace it and to understand it in all its meanings, and the challenges it poses. The 10 chapters in this book provide an examination of the computer games industry from 10 different perspectives, discussing the following aspects:•The spatial logic of the industry•Business model innovation•Games development – a risky business•Co-production and the role of the consumer•Business sustainability•The place of creativity•Emerging people management challenges•Violent games and work well-being•A critical perspective on games as phantasmagoric commodities•Virtual worlds – blurring boundaries between realities and games
Picture of the Display
First Video Game
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto III is an open world action-adventure video game, published by Rockstar Games in 2001 for the PlayStation 2 console. It was the best-selling video game of that year. It is played from a third-person perspective in an open world environment, allowing the player to interact with the game world at their leisure. The game is set within the fictional city of Liberty City, which is loosely based on New York City. The single-player story follows Claude,a bank robber who is left for dead by his girlfriend, and quickly becomes entangled in a world of gangs, crime, and corruption. The game allowed the player an unprecedented degree of freedom to play as they chose. Whether following the main plot or ignoring it, players were free to indulge in any number of diversions at whatever level of morality they found comfortable.
Oculus Rift
The Rift is an upcoming virtual reality head-mounted display, being developed by Oculus VR and represents a new direction in gaming. The consumer version of the product is expected to become available in April 2015.
BioShock
BioShock is a biopunk first-person shooter video game with horror themes published by 2K Games in 2007. was based on the ideas of Objectivism as highlighted by Ayn Rand, while incorporating influences from other authors such as George Orwell. BioShock is set in 1960, in which the player guides the protagonist, Jack, after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Built by the business magnate Andrew Ryan, the city was intended to be an isolated utopia, but the discovery of ADAM, a plasmid which grants superhuman powers, initiated the city's turbulent decline. Jack tries to find a way to escape, fighting through hordes of ADAM-obsessed enemies. BioShock includes elements of role-playing games, giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth, as well as moral choices of saving or killing characters. Critics have praised BioShock's immersive qualities of the game and its political dimension.
A Chicago Sun-Times reviewer wrote that "I never once thought anyone would be able to create an engaging and entertaining video game around the fiction and philosophy of Ayn Rand, but that is essentially what 2K Games has done ... the rare, mature video game that succeeds in making you think while you play". In the book Digital Culture, author Gérard Kraus presents a case study of BioShock as a critical analysis of video games as an artistic medium. This book can be viewed in the e-books section of this libguide.
Mystery House
In 1980, there was no HDMI or progressive scan, just a bunch of white text on a black screen. But this text-based adventure game, created by Sierra On-Line founders Ken and Roberta Williams, was revolutionary for one simple reason: it featured graphics at a time when most computer games did not. The first adventure game to feature a visual component, Mystery House was a commercial success, selling copies in the tens of thousands, which, in those days, qualified it for blockbuster status.
PBS Game/Show
A PBS program channel on youtube, Game/Show looks at the relationship between videogames and modern life.
First leading female protagonist in a console role-playing game.
Released on the Sega Master System in 1987, Phantasy Star told the story of fifteen year old Alis Landale. Alis sees her brother joining a revolutionary group and then is killed by the evil King Lassic. With his dying breath, he asks her to try to discover Lassic's plans. As he dies, she swears to avenge his death.
The Legend of Zelda
Published by Nintendo in 1987, the Legend of Zelda quickly became the first mainstream RPG video game hit. Its gameplay is a mixture of action, adventure, and puzzle solving. A classically structured fantasy tale, Zelda put you into the green moccasins of Link, the young pauper destined to assemble the TriForce and use its power to overthrow the diabolical Ganon and save the princess Zelda. Along with Super Mario Bros, the game rescued the industry from the devastating effects of the crash of 1983. Since it's release, it has developed into still popular franchise, with 17 official games on all of Nintendo's major consoles, as well as several spin-offs.
Games Software Industry Profile: United States
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MarketLine Industry Profile: Games Software in the United StatesEssential resource for top-line data and analysis covering the United States games software market. This industry profile includes market size data, textual and graphical analysis of market growth trends, leading companies and macroeconomic information.