Preliminary Literature Survey
by Geoffrey Rockwell
Business Literature
There are regularly articles in the business literature about the computer game industry. There may also be more complete reports that are available for a fee from consulting companies.
Game Design Literature
There is a literature written by and for game designers of which Crawford’s book, The Art of Computer Game Design, is one of the best examples.
Computer Game Consumer Literature
There is a literature aimed at consumers of computer games. Game magazines, cheat books, books that develop on themes in games are examples of this literature.
Gamesbase (http://tactweb.humanities.mcmaster.ca/tactweb/doc/tactweb.htm#COM) is a TACTweb text database of samples of this literature.
Games as Literature
Games themselves have textual components (instructions, text screens, box tops…) and therefore are their own literature. The Gamesbase text database has some samples of this sort. (See above.)
Classic Gaming and the History of Computer Games
There are a number of popular books and WWW sites dedicated to the history of computer games. An example of a book is Zap: The Rise and Fall of Atari by Scott Cohen, 1984.
Philosophy of Sport
There is a recent literature around the philosophy of sport that may be of interest.
Philosophy and Play
Play is an important concept to philosophers like Huizinga in Homo Ludens and Gadamer in Truth and Method.
Psychology of Computer Games
There is a literature around the study of the effects of computer games on culture and children of which Provenzo, Video Kids: Making Sense of Nintendo is an example. Recently there has been a turn to examining violence and computer games as in, Anderson and Ford, “Video Games and Aggresive Thoughts, Feeling, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology April 2000 - Volume 78.No. 4 (2000): 772 – 790.
Game Theory
Game Theory is an established field that has a literature.
Topology of Games
1. Topology based on where you play (topos):
1.1 Arcade games - played in coin arcades
1.2 PC games - played on personal computers in homes or offices
1.3 Consoles - played in front of the TV
1.4 Internet games - also played on a PC, but in the virtual space of the Internet
1.5 Mobile Game Consoles - Nintendo Gameboy, and other mobile consoles that can be played in the car or other locations outside the home
1.6 Game Appliances - Like the mobile consoles these are played wherever, but they are dedicated to one game. Tamagotchi is the best example.
1.7 Learning games - played at school usually with explicit educational objectives
2. Topology based on pace of play (chronos):
2.1 Adventure games. Take lots of time. Play to a solution and then unlikely to play again. There is little stress to solve things immediately. Puzzle based.
2.2 Arcade games. Play over and over. You can continue playing even when you have "won" because there are new levels and finishing is not the point. This are fast and time dependent. The economic factor of inserting coins affects these games.
2.3 Episodic and Portable games. Game appliances like the Tamagotchi that you carry around and nurse.
2.4 Turn games. Usually board games that you play over the Internet. You play when it is your turn.
2.5 Hybrid games. There are games that combine the pace of 2.1 and 2.2. These games will have slower "adventure" narrative sections in between action/arcade sections. There are also games that purportedly recognize the style of play the player prefers and adapts to their preference.
Significant Games
Traditional Games
Prehistory of games:
Chess, Go, Checkers,
Backgammon
Card Games:
Bridge, Whist, Hearts, Fish,
War
Poker, Cribbage - have
technology other than cards
Magic
Pokemon - cards, computer game,
and TV animation - important example of integrated product
Important Toys
Rubik's Cube, Model Train Sets,
Puzzles, Dominoes, Boggle, Master Mind, Battleship, Twister, YoYo, Pickup
Sticks, Marbles, Top
Construction Toys
Lego, Mechano, Tinker Toy,
Creepy Crawlies (?), Mr. Potato Head, Play Doh, Silly
Putty,
Board Games
Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial
Pursuits, Diplomacy, Clue, Careers, Scruples
Board Military Strategy and Simulation
Games
Afrika Corps, Napoleon at
Waterloo, Jutland, Desert Fox
Fantasy and Science Fiction
Games
Dungeons and Dragons - Dungeons
and Dragons is in a category by itself
Magic
(again)
LARPs (Live-Action Role
Play)
Computer Games
Early Computer Games
Adventure - first "adventure
type of game"
Spacewar - first arcade type of
game (depends on your history)
Pong - first arcade game - also
one of the first home consoles
Magnavox Odyssey - first home
console - but I think unimportant to history compared to Atari and
Pong
Classic Game Age (whatever the classic period
is)
Zork - first commercialized
adventure game
Space Invaders - from Spacewar
to Asteroids - the lineage of space games
Missile Command - Uses
trackball
Battlezone - uses 3D
space
Pac-Man
Tron - Movie about computer
games and reality
Second Generation Consoles and Appliances
(after the crash of the classic age)
Nintendo Entertainment System
(NES) - big seller into home console market
Mario and Donkey Kong - side
scrollers
Legend of Zelda - graphical
adventure games
Game Boy - mobile console type
game machine
Pokemon - games, cards and TV
mix
N64 (P2 and coming
boxes)
PC Games
Tetris - important
game
Microsoft Flight Simulator -
uses polygons - an evolving simulation
Commanche - uses voxels for
realistic 3d experience
Deja Vu - Adventure game with
graphical interface for Mac - this is bridge between Zork and
Myst
Wolfenstein - first first
person shooter
Tomb Raider - Lara Croft
character - leads to movie
Purple Moon - company set up by
Brenda Laurel tries to create new mode of games for grls.
Myst - worth looking at their
earlier games for children
Sim City - leads to the best
game of all - The SIMs
Quake
Civilization - strategy games
make it back onto the computer (an earlier game by Crawford called ? gets lots
of press, but doesn't take off)
Network Games
MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer
Online RPGs) – Examples?
Computer Game
Appliances
Tamagotchi - game appliance
takes off - leads to all sorts of virtual pets
Furby - hate it, but it is an
interesting development (and my daughter loved hers)
Lego Mindstorms - educational
robotics as a learning game
Intel’s new computer
peripherals like microscopes and so on
WWW
Sites
See
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/james.masters/TraditionalGames/index.htm for a
topology of "Traditional Games"
A lot of these games are owned
by Hasbro and you can find descriptions at:
http://www.hasbro.com/default.asp?x=games
Classic toy list at:
http://www.toy-tma.com/industry/news/classic.html (check out this site for all
sorts of statistics on toys and games. Note the toy industry and their topology
of toys/games at:
http://www.toy-tia.org/industry/statistics/nsp00.html)
Toy history from "Dr. Toy"
http://www.drtoy.com/drtoy/toyhistory.htm
Two major publishers of war
games that I remember Avalon Hill the magazine "Strategy and Tactics" (http://www.decisiongames.com/mags/st.htm).
For history of computer games
see
http://www.videogamespot.com/features/universal/hov/index.html
http://directory.google.com/Top/Games/Video_Games/History/
http://www.emuunlim.com/doteaters/index.htm