Minor platforms in videogame history / Benjamin Nicoll.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nicoll, Benjamin (Lecturer in digital media), author.

Series:

Games and play (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Games and play

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Video games--History.

Video games.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (211 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 2019.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Videogame history is not just a history of one successful technology replacing the next. It is also a history of platforms and communities that never quite made it; that struggled to make their voices heard; that aggravated against the conventions of the day; and that never enjoyed the commercial success or recognition of their major counterparts. In Minor Platforms in Videogame History, Benjamin Nicoll argues that 'minor' videogame histories are anything but insignificant. Through an analysis of transitional, decolonial, imaginary, residual, and minor videogame platforms, Nicoll highlights moments of difference and discontinuity in videogame history. From the domestication of vector graphics in the early years of videogame consoles to the 'cloning' of Japanese computer games in South Korea in the 1980s, this book explores case studies that challenge taken-for-granted approaches to videogames, platforms, and their histories.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction : Failed, forgotten, or overlooked? Methods for historicizing minor platforms

1. Ways of seeing videogame history: The Vectrex as a transitional platform

2. Articulations of videogame piracy: The Zemmix as a decolonial platform

3. Domesticating the arcade: The Neo Geo as an imaginary platform

4. A dialectic of obsolescence? The Sega Saturn as a residual platform

5. 'How history arrives': Twine as a minor platform

Conclusion: 'Something new in the old'

Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 20 Nov 2020).

ISBN:

1-003-69982-0

90-485-6148-5

90-485-4030-5

9781003699828

OCLC:

1119643597