Once Upon Atari

Author: Howard Scott Warshaw
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780986218668
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
ONCE UPON ATARI is an intimate view into the dramatic rise and fall of the early video game industry, and how it shaped the life of one of its key players. This book offers eye-opening details and insights, delivered in a creative style that mirrors the industry it reveals. An innovative work from one of the industry's original innovators.This is a detailed look behind the scenes of the early days of video games, with particular attention to the causative factors leading up to the video game crash of the early 1980s. It is also the journey of one industry pioneer, and how his experience creating some of the world's most noted pieces of interactive entertainment reverberates throughout his life. It is a compelling and dramatic tale of innocence, greed, exuberance, hubris, joy, devastation and ultimately redemption, told in a fresh voice and an unorthodox style.

The Sega Arcade Revolution

Author: Ken Horowitz
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476631964
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
Long before it took the home video game console market by storm, Sega was already an arcade powerhouse. Parlaying its dominance in coin-operated machines into the home video game boom of the 1980s, the Japan-based company soon expanded with branches in Europe and the U.S., and continues to lead the gaming industry in design and quality. Drawing on interviews with former developers and hundreds of documents, this history follows the rise of Sega, from its electromechanical machines of the mid-1960s to the acquisition of Gremlin Industries to its 2003 merger with Sammy Corporation. Sixty-two of Sega's most popular and groundbreaking games are explored.

Atari to Zelda

Author: Mia Consalvo
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262545764
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Book Description
The cross-cultural interactions of Japanese videogames and the West—from DIY localization by fans to corporate strategies of “Japaneseness.” In the early days of arcades and Nintendo, many players didn’t recognize Japanese games as coming from Japan; they were simply new and interesting games to play. But since then, fans, media, and the games industry have thought further about the “Japaneseness” of particular games. Game developers try to decide whether a game's Japaneseness is a selling point or stumbling block; critics try to determine what elements in a game express its Japaneseness—cultural motifs or technical markers. Games were “localized,” subjected to sociocultural and technical tinkering. In this book, Mia Consalvo looks at what happens when Japanese games travel outside Japan, and how they are played, thought about, and transformed by individuals, companies, and groups in the West. Consalvo begins with players, first exploring North American players’ interest in Japanese games (and Japanese culture in general) and then investigating players’ DIY localization of games, in the form of ROM hacking and fan translating. She analyzes several Japanese games released in North America and looks in detail at the Japanese game company Square Enix. She examines indie and corporate localization work, and the rise of the professional culture broker. Finally, she compares different approaches to Japaneseness in games sold in the West and considers how Japanese games have influenced Western games developers. Her account reveals surprising cross-cultural interactions between Japanese games and Western game developers and players, between Japaneseness and the market.

Racing the Beam

Author: Nick Montfort
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262539764
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
A study of the relationship between platform and creative expression in the Atari VCS, the gaming system for popular games like Pac-Man and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. The 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 Atari VCS—often considered merely a retro fetish object—is an essential part of the history of video games.

Zap!

Author: Scott Cohen
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : es
Pages : 200

Book Description

Breakout

Author: Jamie Lendino
Publisher: Steel Gear Press
ISBN: 195793204X
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Book Description
Atari 8-bit computers are the first machines that truly bridged the divide between video game players and home computer enthusiasts. The Atari 400 and 800 signaled the start of a new era in computing. Breakout: How Atari 8-Bit Computers Defined a Generation is the first book to cover what made Atari's groundbreaking computer line great: its excellent graphics and sound, flexible programming environment, and wide support from the burgeoning home computer community. For those of us coming of gaming age in the 80s, Atari games were simply amazing—and you'll find out what made these titles so much fun to play. Breakout also explores the Atari 8-bit platform as it stands today, with a robust enthusiast and modding community, the increasing value of Atari computers and peripherals, and how to get started with one now or get your old one running again. With fully revised and updated sections on emulation, mods, and add-ons, plus new community sites, podcasts, and detailed write-ups of 170 Atari 8-bit games (60 more than before), this second edition of Breakout is a must-buy for every vintage computer or gaming enthusiast.

The Game Console 2.0

Author: Evan Amos
Publisher: No Starch Press
ISBN: 1718500610
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
This revised and expanded second edition of the bestselling The Game Console contains brand new content, with coverage of 50 more consoles, variants, and accessories in 50 added pages. The Game Console 2.0 is a gorgeous coffee table book for geeks and gamers that brings together highly detailed photos of more than 100 video game consoles and their electronic interiors spanning nearly five decades. Revised and updated since the first edition’s celebrated 2018 release, The Game Console 2.0 is an even bigger archival collection of vividly detailed photos of more than 100 video-game consoles. This ultimate archive of gaming history spans five decades and nine distinct generations, chronologically covering everything from market leaders to outright failures, and tracing the gaming industry’s rise, fall, and monumental resurgence. The book’s 2nd edition features more classic game consoles and computers, a section on retro gaming in the modern era, and dozens of new entries — including super-rare finds, such the Unisonic Champion 2711, and the latest ninth-generation consoles. You’ll find coverage of legendary systems like the Magnavox Odyssey, Atari 2600, NES, and the Commodore 64; systems from the ‘90s and 2000s; modern consoles like the Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5; and consoles you never knew existed. Get a unique peek at the hardware powering the world’s most iconic video-game systems with The Game Console 2.0 — the perfect gift for geeks of all stripes and every gamer’s must-have coffee-table book.

The Comic Book Story of Video Games

Author: Jonathan Hennessey
Publisher: Ten Speed Graphic
ISBN: 0399578919
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
A complete, illustrated history of video games--highlighting the machines, games, and people who have made gaming a worldwide, billion-dollar industry/artform--told in a graphic novel format. Author Jonathan Hennessey and illustrator Jack McGowan present the first full-color, chronological origin story for this hugely successful, omnipresent artform and business. Hennessey provides readers with everything they need to know about video games--from their early beginnings during World War II to the emergence of arcade games in the 1970s to the rise of Nintendo to today's app-based games like Angry Birds and Pokemon Go. Hennessey and McGowan also analyze the evolution of gaming as an artform and its impact on society. Each chapter features spotlights on major players in the development of games and gaming that contains everything that gamers and non-gamers alike need to understand and appreciate this incredible phenomenon.

Classic Home Video Games, 1989-1990

Author: Brett Weiss
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786492317
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
The third in a series about home video games, this detailed reference work features descriptions and reviews of every official U.S.-released game for the Neo Geo, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16, which, in 1989, ushered in the 16-bit era of gaming. Organized alphabetically by console brand, each chapter includes a description of the game system followed by substantive entries for every game released for that console. Video game entries include historical information, gameplay details, the author's critique, and, when appropriate, comparisons to similar games. Appendices list and offer brief descriptions of all the games for the Atari Lynx and Nintendo Game Boy, and catalogue and describe the add-ons to the consoles covered herein--Neo Geo CD, Sega CD, Sega 32X and TurboGrafx-CD.

Finding the Next Steve Jobs

Author: Nolan Bushnell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476759839
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
From the legendary founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s and Steve Jobs’s first boss, the secrets to finding, hiring, keeping, and nurturing creative talent. The business world is changing faster than ever, and every day your company faces new complications and difficulties. The only way to resolve these issues is to have a staff of wildly creative people who live as much in the future as the present, who thrive on being different, and whose ideas will guarantee that your company will prosper when other companies fail. A celebrated visionary and iconoclast, Nolan Bushnell founded the groundbreaking gaming company Atari before he went on to found Chuck E. Cheese’s and two dozen other companies. He also happened to launch the career of the late Steve Jobs, along with those of many other brilliant creatives over the course of his five decades in business. With refreshing candor, keen psychological insight, and robust humor, Bushnell explains in Finding the Next Steve Jobs how to think boldly and differently about companies and organizations—and specifically the people who work within them. For anyone trying to turn a company into the next Atari or Apple, build a more creative workforce, or fashion a career in a changing world, this book will enlighten, challenge, surprise, and amuse.