Video Games & Computer Holding Power by Sherry Turkle

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Video Games & Computer Holding Power by 



Sherry Turkle (1984, The New Media Reader, pp. 500-513)

• by 1982 people spent more money on video games than movies & records combined
  
• video games as an analogy for constructed “rule governed worlds” & simulation
  
• TV is something you watch, video games are something you do
  
• comparison of video games to pinball (ancestor): “In pinball you act on the
  ball. In Pac-Man you are the mouth.”
  
• concept of identifying with the game character
  
• first video game: Space War, built at MIT in the early 1960’s (required a super computer)
  
• Pong – 10 years later / more portable
  
• Space Invaders / Joust (progression in nature of characters: Pong was just a
  marker, these were visually more complex)
  
• advent of adventure games; interactive books
  
• relationship between fantasy role playing games & computer culture
  
• video game as altered state; metaphor of meditation/total concentration
  
• opportunity for perfection