1

The Development of Interactive Games

Leslie Haddon

Haddon, L. (1999) ‘The Development of Interactive Games’, in Mackay, H. and

O’Sullivan, T. (eds) The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation, Sage, London,
pp.305-27.

Towards the end of the 1990s interactive entertainment, the lion’s share of which is
accounted for by games, was a larger market than video rental in Europe and was almost
80% of the cinema box office1. After its emergence within hacker and hobbyist circles,
a history of booms and busts, marginal status alongside toys, games have finally become
established within the mainstream culture industries - and for increasing numbers have
found a routine, albeit moderate, role within everyday life.

This chapter examines three related histories starting with the development of games
hardware, to show how interactive games descended through a number of technological
trajectories2. The earliest games originated in research computing departments in the
early 1960s. Given that the large computers of the 50s were used mainly for serious
purposes, their unlikely origins need some explanation. So too does their subsequent
diffusion throughout the computer establishment as they were taken up by
microcomputer hobbyists from the mid-70s. Video games machines, the coin-operated
machines in amusement arcades and home video games products (especially
programmable consoles) were the interactive games' other lineage. Both these routes
eventually saw the emergence of an independent games software sector with some of the
characteristics of other media industries. However, it was the coin-ops and consoles
which laid a basis for the popularity of the microcomputer games of the 80s, which in
turn led the early home computers to become for a time predominantly games machines.

The second section focuses on the evolution of software industries and on specific game
texts. A number of genres, such as adventure games, originated on larger mainframe
computers. But the most significant type of game was the fast 'action' genre, initially
associated with shooting games, which were developed on interactive minicomputers.
Both the nature of the game-play and of these narratives can be understood in terms of

1
Screen Digest, Global Interactive Entertainment: Big Growth in Spending, February, 1997, p.33
2
This account is based on the author's doctoral thesis on the history of home computers and interactive
games, which entailed interviews with a variety of producers. Earlier versions appeared as Leslie Haddon,
‘Electronic and Computer Games', Screen vol. 29 no. 2, Spring 1988, pp. 52-73, and Leslie Haddon,
'Interactive Games' in Hayward, P. and Wollen, T. (eds.) Future Visions: New Technologies on the Screen,
(London: British Film Institute Publishing, 1993, pp.123-47.
 2

the researchers' contemporary interest in interactive computing generally and the

particular tastes of early male game designers. Action games later fitted conveniently in
the arcades’ coin-ops and home video games attracted interest from other media
industries whose licensing deals affected games content. These ties with other media
were later re-established when microcomputer games appeared, but only after the early
cottage industry of small software producers had been replaced by larger games
publishers.

The final section examines the nature of games-playing itself and the frequently
negative reception which this activity generated among pressure groups and academics.
Moral panics about games - including fears of addiction, the 'effects' of desensitisation
and of escapism - have spanned a range of political campaigns, media coverage and
academic, mainly psychological, analysis. The origin of such concerns is a complex
topic in themselves, deriving partly from more traditions criticisms of television and
partly from more recent anxieties about the experience of computing.

Relevant to this inquiry is why games were initially so interesting to the first computer
hobbyists. This group was significant as both early consumers and producers of
software, and their whole approach to games as a means of learning about programming
shaped the experience of others outside their own community. Computer games were
fundamentally different from the previous video games in that users could combine
programming with games. Looking into, altering or breaking the copyright protection on
programs, as well as creating their own games and special effects meant that for many
playing the game was only part of a package of experience.

To date, many of the commentaries on games-playing have focused on either the nature
of games as masculine texts or the masculine appeal of mastering interactive technology.
The emphatic interest of young males in games-playing needs to be addressed, but too
narrow a focus neglects the history of games-playing as an interactive technology. The
crucial stage in the evolution of games was their appearance in arcades where playing
became a collective form of leisure amongst young males. Later with the advent of the
microcomputer, programming expanded the activity of ‘games-playing’ beyond the
moment of sitting at the screen with a joystick, and closer inspection of what constitutes
this more complex consumption highlights the particularity of young male interest. It
will be argued that any ‘masculine’ content of games is itself more liable reflect this
interest than to determine it.

Hardware: The First Computer Games

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, computer science was in the process of being
constructed as an academic discipline3. MIT introduced the first courses on computing

3
This section is mainly based on: Steven Levy, Hackers: Heros of the Revolution (Garden City: Doubleday,
1984); Stewart Brand, 'Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums', Rolling
Stone, 7 December 1972; and Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, Fire in the Valley: The Making of the
Personal Computer (Berkley: Osborne/ lWcGraw-Hill, I984).
 3

for undergraduates in 1959 and set up an 'Artificial Intelligence' research department.

The military had been funding Computer development since the early days of the space
programme. When this programme was transferred to the civil body NASA, the military
decided to increase its support for computing and basic research projects in particular.
The new AI department was able to deploy these funds with a considerable degree of
discretion and employed the first enthusiastic students emerging from MIT's new
courses. Meanwhile, the university department was developing a close relationship with
the young company DEC, then at the forefront of the newly emerging minicomputer
industry. DEC provided MIT with a free minicomputer and any assistance that was
requested. In return, the minicomputer company benefited from MIT research and
advice, received a range of free programs from the AI department, and eventually
recruited a number of staff from this source.

Within these institutional arrangements, the AI department was in the process of

developing new forms of computing. At that time, the only model of computing was the
batch-processing system dominated by IBM. Anyone wanting access to mainframes had
to submit programs to operators and pick up the results later. Using a small research
computer and a DEC minicomputer, the MIT unit explored a more direct style of
computing with these machines, whereby users could receive immediate feedback. MIT
researchers developed a range of facilities to support this new type of 'real time'
computing, formulating some of the principles by which microcomputers were later to
operate.

Even prior to the new MIT courses, a male community had evolved in the university’s
model railway club, where members used their technical expertise to construct and
investigate systems - telephone and railway ones on particular. These students
continually tried to perfect new 'features ‘for their systems. The set of values operating
in this culture led them to develop their own terminology, in which a key concept was
the ‘hack’: a stylish technical innovation undertaken for the intrinsic pleasure of
experimenting - not necessarily fulfilling any more constructive goal. Defining
themselves as 'hackers', the students were soon attracted to the new computer systems
in the AI department. In the course of displaying their programming skills, these hackers
explored and enhanced the capabilities of these new machines.

As 'hacks', projects which tested and demonstrated the computer’s abilities were often of
little use in themselves. For example, these enthusiasts worked on programs to play
chess and to solve puzzles generated by solitaire. This approach to computing was very
different from the traditional, 'serious use' of the machine. Rather than treating
computers as mundane tools, the hackers played with the machines as if they were toys.
While heretical to many of their contemporaries, the AI managers regarded these
projects as vehicles for learning about interactive computing. There were also tangible
spin-offs. Hackers wrote the operating systems for their first machine, the TX-O and
then improved it for DEC's minicomputer, the PDP-I, as well as supplying other
programs which would have been very costly to design commercially. More particularly,
the hackers produced innovatory software to handle real time computer graphics and
later made considerable contributions to the development of time-sharing.
 4

The first games were just such exploratory projects. Demonstration programs which
created visual effects already existed. For example one such program controlled a row of
flashing lights which simulated the motion of a ball in table tennis. Another project
entailed the construction of a maze on a VDU in which a mouse would search for
cheese. But the start of interactive gaming as we now know it developed
with the space battle program Spacewar.

In the years between the first Spacewar and the advent of the earliest forms of what we
now call the PC, games became an established feature on larger computers because of
programmers' interest in games-playing and because games were useful to computer
manufacturers. In 1962, MIT exhibited Spacewar to the general public. DEC requested a
copy, and Spacewar was soon supplied to all their clients. Apart from their diagnostic
utility in checking if machines were in order,games were also used by the DEC
salesforce as demonstration pieces. Spacewar showed the accessible and friendly face of
computers. Later, when graphics capability became an important consideration, games
were often used to demonstrate the sophistication of these machines. By the 70s, games
had become established as 'traditional' and legitimate programs.

Hardware: Arcade Games

Nolan Bushnall was mainly responsible for the transfer of games to the arcades4. An
engineer who had played the original computer games as a student, Bushnall had also
worked in amusement parks. Once the price of chip technology fell sufficiently he
attempted a coin-op version of Spacewar. Designed in 1971, the game was not an
immediate commercial success. But his subsequent effort proved very popular: the
electronic table-tennis game Pong, made with the help of a colleague. With this product,
Bushnall and his colleagues founded the company Atari, a company which was to
become the major force in the new games industry.

Other companies entered this new market very quickly. Within a few years there were
thirty manufacturers of coin-op video games, reducing Atari's market share to 10 per
cent by the end of 1973. But by the late 70s, Atari, now supported by Warner
Communication funds, came to dominate the industry again, producing for both the
coin-op and home video games markets. Following the introduction of Space Invaders
4
For the history of arcade developments see Tekla Perry et al., 'Video Games: the Electronic Big Bang',
IEEE Spectrum, vol. 19 no 12, December 1982, pp. 20-33; Craig Kubey, The Winners Book of Video
Games (London: W.H. Allen, 1982); John Price, 'Social Science Research on Video Games, Journal of
Popular Culture vol. 18 no. 4, Spring 1985, pp. 111-25; Peter Bernstein, 'Atari and the Video Games
Explosion', Fortune vol. 104 no. 2, July 1981, pp. 40-6; Judith Larsen and Everett Rogers, Silicon Valley
Fever: Growth of High Technology Culture (London: Unwin, 1984); Sidney Kaplan, 'The Image of
Amusement Arcades and the Differences in Male and Female Video Game Playing, Journal of Popular
Culture, 1983, pp. 93-8; Sue Smith, '"Coin Detected in Pocket: Videogames as Icons', in C. Geist and S.
Nachbar (eds.), The Popular culture Reader (Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press,
1983), pp. 145-51; Aaron Latham, 'Videogames Star Wars', New York Times Magazine, 25 October 1981,
pp. 100-12.
 5

in 1979, the arcade game reached new heights of popularity. This can be measured by
sales of game machines which rose from approximately $40 million to $500 million
between 1979 and 1981, by which time coin-op games had become an international
phenomenon.
Their proliferation and profitability attracted growing media attention as well as
provoking considerable critical comment5.

Coin-op machines were located in American bars and shops as well as the actual arcades
from which they took their name. Amusement park owners were particularly motivated
to adopt these machines. The new games were part of a widespread attempt to discard
the sleazy image of the arcade. These managers felt that the new product would help to
introduce respectability to the amusement park, making it a place for family
entertainment. The homely table-tennis game may have been particularly attractive from
this perspective but more generally the clean electronic high-tech form of the new games
helped to signal the arcade’s more modern look. These electronic games specifically
appropriated the role which pinball had occupied: within a few years of the introduction
of video games, pinball sales had declined by two-thirds. Meanwhile the major pinball
manufacturers were among those companies moving into the production of the new
coin-op machines.

Hardware: Home Video Games Machines

Sanders Electronics, an American defence-orientated company, was responsible for

developing the first home video game technology as an alternative use for TV sets6. The
first commercial product, released in 1972, was licensed to the TV distributor
Magnavox. The Odyssey machine was capable of playing twelve games, including
simple hockey tennis and maze games, many of which were similar to each other. Users
had to place plastic overlays on the television screen to provide the background setting
for the video games. To reprogram the machine for different games, players had to plug
in circuit cards. These 'TV games' initially had a much lower profile than the coin-ops
although they were reasonably successful in the market as a consumer electronic.

In 1975, Atari released Pong for the home market. The home version of Pong added
new features such as sound effects and ricochets and introduced integrated circuit
technology. These components, otherwise known as silicon chips or semiconductors,
were to be the basis of general microelectronics development up to the present day.
From 1974, other companies also started to enter the market, with leisure specialists and
5
Eric Egli and Lawrence Meyers, 'The Role of Video Game Playing in Adolescent Life: is there Reason to
be Concerned?', Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society vol. 22 no. 4, 1984, p. 309.
6
For the history of home video games developments, see Ralph Baer, Television Games: Their Past Present
and Future'. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics vol. CE-23 no. 4, November 1979, pp 496-504;
M. Jones, 'Video Games as Psychological Tests, Simulations and Games vol.15 no. 2 June 1984, pp.133-4;
Thomas Murrey, 'The Boom in Video Games', Dun's Review vol.108 no. 3, September 1976, pp.54-5;
Screen Digest, 'Video games', July 1977, pp. 127-9; Stephan Bristow, The History of Video Games', IEEE
Transactions on Consumer Electronics February 1977, pp. 58-68; Perry et al., 'Design Case History: The
Atari Video Computer System', IEEE Spectrum, March 1983, pp. 45-51 Peter Nulty, 'Why the Craze Won't
Quit', Fortune, 15 November 1982 pp 114-24.
 6

semiconductor firms competing with pinball manufacturers. Over thirty new companies
started producing for this home market in 1976 alone. The particular appeal to the
semiconductor companies, such as Fairchild and National Semiconductor, was that
video games machines arrived just at the time when they were diversifying from capital
goods and in the process of building up a consumer products division. These firms had
seen the profitability of utilising chips in digital watches and calculators and once video
games started to use chips, they perceived them as being an ideal product for their new
divisions.

After Pong, TV games technology consisted of one chip or a combination of chips on

which there were fixed programs. By 1976 several companies were working to replace
these chips with a microprocessor. This technology had already been introduced into the
coin-ops, where the sale price of each unit justified its cost. In 1976, Fairchild Camera
and Instruments introduced the Channel F or Video Entertainment System, which would
accept programmable cartridges As far as the semiconductors were concerned, video
games provided just the type of dedicated application for the new microprocessor
technology which they had been seeking. Soon other programmable
consoles were available from RCA, Bally, Magnavox Coleco, and Atari.
This move to microprocessors affected the nature of the video games product.
Programmable machines, or consoles, created a flexible division between hardware and
software. Thus, a distinct software industry could emerge once video games cartridge
manufacturers could sell games separately from the hardware they were played on.
Games machines were now potentially 'software players' like hi-fis and other home-
based 'delivery systems'. Games software could be bought, collected and compared in
the same way as records.

The console market started to boom in the late 1970s, with sales of hardware and
software peaking in 1982. Although many of the early manufacturers had already left the
field, leaving only Magnavox, Mattel and Atari7, as the boom accelerated various
companies from the toy industry diversified into this area, Coleco being the most
successful newcomer. Atari remained dominant with 80 per cent of the home market by
1980. In that year, 3.5 per cent of American homes had consoles, and by 1981 this had
risen to 8 per cent.

There were always dissenting voices which discussed games as a fad, although the
general view aired in the trade press in the early 80s was optimistic The one cloud on
the horizon was the growing home computer industry. Microcomputer products were
initially much more expensive, and were thought to cater for a different market, but as
home computer prices fell, the new product started to appropriate the role of consoles
and distract sales from the video games market. The consensus in the trade press by the
end of 1983, a year after video games actually reached peak sales, deemed the video
games 'boom' to be over. In fact, sales did not simply disappear. The consoles had now

7
A number of the firms which first entered the market saw a potential in programmable consoles which
went beyond games, as a more general entertainment software player. Part of the reason for leaving was
that this usage never materialised.
 7

been relegated to toy departments at reduced prices, where they continued to sell
steadily but in smaller quantities8.

Hardware: Microcomputer Games

Microcomputers had first emerged in the USA as a hobbyist product during the mid-
1970s9. However some of the leading hardware manufacturers and industry observers
foresaw a more lucrative future for this machine as a mass market consumer electronic.
The most ambitious scenario, such as those cultivated by the semiconductor giant Texas
Instruments, envisaged future PCs which would not only run a variety of software, but
which could eventually be connected to telecommunications systems and even have
home control facilities. The home computer could become a central part of the
household routinely used by all the family. In the shorter term, difficulties implementing
telecoms and control functions meant that American producers pitched these earleir
verisons of the PC as a more restricted, albeit still versatile, ‘software player’.

In fact, the first British home computers, launched in 1980 and 1981 by Sinclair, were
different type of machine, extensively sold as products able to explore the world of
computing. This 'computer literacy' theme was to remain stronger in Britain than many
had originally expected and it had a significant bearing on the very experience of
game-playing. As the boom in home computers expanded, producers for the British
market, including the leaders Sinclair, Acorn and Commodore, hoped along with their
American counterparts that their machines would find more wide-ranging applications.
consequently, these hardware manufacturers maintained an ambivalent attitude towards
games.

In their favour, games provided a familiar application for these early machines,
requiring no expensive additional equipment such as printers. Some microcomputer
firms even recognised the possibility of taking business away from the profitable video
games market. On the other hand, too strong a games identity threatened the status of the
PC as a more general purpose machine, and indeed pushed the computer towards being a
child's toy. Hence, early advertisements for microcomputers never overtly emphasised
games as their central function; if anything, the key stress was on the educational
potential of the machine. While games were always mentioned in advertisements and
fostered by the software support that manufacturers offered, games-playing was depicted
as being only one option within a range of applications.

The Microcomputer as Games Machine

8
Author’s interview with Atari management in Britain (8 July 1986)
9
See Leslie Haddon, 'Home Computers: the Making of a Consumer Electronic', Science as Culture no. 2,
1987.
 8

By 1983, the sudden entry of a range of new companies culminated in considerable

competition and price cutting, straining the profitability of many firms. As a result, a
number of manufacturers left the industry or went bankrupt. In 1984 a slight decline in
demand occurred just as retailers overstocked for the Christmas sales; price cutting in
the New Year to clear this stock and the consequent fall in retailer orders precipitated
several company collapses. Acorn had to be rescued, and later even Sinclair ran into
difficulties. The national news media which covered these developments suggested that
the 'bubble had burst', giving rise to a widely held public perception that the home
computer had somehow faded away.

However, assumptions that the home PC had disappeared were incorrect. Hardware and
software sales remained at high enough levels to support the fewer companies still
operating in the market. The temporary financial problems experienced by many firms
were eventually resolved, as most companies gradually moved into profit. Although
slightly fewer magazines were to be found, the computer press still occupied a firmly
established section of newsagent shelf space. Home computers may have had a lower
media profile and commanded less prominence in the multiple retail departments, but
the industry was far from dead.

Even by the time of the crisis, the home PC had already become established as the new
vehicle for electronic games. The computer had been appropriated by users as a games
machine, despite the wishes of manufacturers. And by the late 1980s, the peak of
interest in games may have passed, but games were still routinely played by many boys
and girls10.

Nevertheless, the original reservations that games narrowed the PC’s potential and
devalued it persisted for some years after 1983, together with a disappointment that
early ambitions for a more all-purpose machine had not been realised: the technological
'revolution' had gone astray. In order to broaden the identity of the existing computer
product, both hardware manufactures and software publishers (e.g. Atari, The Digital
Muse) started to promote non-game entertainment software, such as art and music
packages (e.g. Degas Elite, Virtuoso), and applications derived originally from the
business market (chiefly through database, wordprocessing and spreadsheet software).
By the late 80s other industry commentators saw the route to a more general purpose
computer as laying with more powerful machines, exemplified at that time by the Atari
ST and Commodore Amiga series. However, such computers also tended to build partly
upon the appeal of games gather than challenge their predominance.

Hardware in the 1990s

10
This is clear from surveys, my own samples and other qualitative research including a longitudinal study
at the Centre for Mass Communications Research in Leicester University: Graham Murdock, Paul
Hartmann and Perry Gray, 'Contextualising Home Computing: Resources and Practices', in Roger
Silverstone and Erich Hirsch (eds.), Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Private Spaces
(London: Routledge, 1992) and David Skinner’s unpublished doctorate research Technology Consumption
and the Future: The Experience of Home Computing, Brunel University (1992).
 9

Probably the most striking development on the hardware front was the 1990s renewed
success of the dedicated video games machines. Nintendo was the chief and original
actor to re-establish games consoles from the mid- to late 1980s in Japan and then in the
US. So it was not so not surprising to see British trade press headlines like 'Home
Computer Wars II: The Console Strikes Back' from late 1980s. In fact, consoles took a
little longer to grow in popularity in the UK, reflecting the fact that the home PC had
become so established as the games machine in this country. But eventually the appeal
of the games available for consoles, their relative cheapness compared to computers and
the fact that they loading was faster all helped to establish them again. For example, by
1994, more than 60 percent of households with children had the latest 16-bit console
technology11. In fact, it was actually Nintendos’s rival Sega who was initially more
successful in the UK. Although a range of other companies, including Commodore,
Amstrad and the toy maker Hornby, added their own brands of console to this
market12the two Japanese firms dominated until the mid-1990s.

The strategy introduced by Nintendo seem in part to have taken into account claims that
Atari video games failed in the 1990s because too much poor quality software was
available. Nintendo made much more effort to control what type of software was
produced13. Originally producing this in-house (including the very successful Mario
Brothers game), the company eventually allowed software houses to produce under
license, taking 20% royalty. In fact, software was always for Nintendo the main source
of revenue, the hardware being priced relatively low to build an installed base. In
addition Nintendo (and then Sega) used cartridge technology to prevent copying. This
not only pushed up the price of software, but software houses had additionally to pay
Nintendo to put their games onto its cartridges - creating considerable costs and also
risks for software houses, especially when they had to agree to buy large minimum
numbers of cartridges. The result was a fair amount of criticism and conflict over unfair
business practices, with litigation in Japan and the US, an with Nintendo coming under
the scrutiny of various trading bodies. Both Sega and Nintendo were referred to the
Monopolies and Mergers Commission in the UK14.

However, in somewhat of a replay of the 1980s home computer boom, software sales
which had been growing strongly year on year declined in 1994-1995, as did the
companies’ profitability, partially reflecting factors such as oversupply of software and
discounting15. One other factor was the new generation of consoles on the horizon. In
fact, with hindsight the mid-1990s stagnation proved to be a glitch, as consoles and
software once again saw impressive growth in sales for the next years as 32-bit consoles
11
Michael Hayes and Stuart Dinsey, Games War. Video Games - A Business Review, London, Bowerdean,
1995, p.12.
12
Many of the details and viewpoints in the following pages are derived from issues of the home computer
industry trade press Computer Trade Weekly.
13
David Sheff, Game Over: Nintendo’s Battle to Dominate an Industry, London, Hodder and Stoughton,
1993.
14
Monopolies and Mergers Commission, Video Games: A Report on the Supply of Video Games in the UK,
London, HMSO, March 1995.
15
Much of the section on this stage in the life of consoles draws on Eric Lake’s current doctorate research
on video games development at Cranfield University, ‘Mapping the Process of Product Innovation.’
 10

lead by Sony Playstation and Sega’s Saturn proved to be extremely popular. The
difference with these machines was the move from cartridge to CD-ROM storage, which
was equally difficult to copy but cheaper to produce.

Apart from the rebirth of the console, games developments continued on the home
computers. In the late 80s and early 90s, games expanded from the early machine
formats onto those very PCs which were trying to break away from the image of the
games machine. The Amstrad PCW series and PC series of computers started to attract
games support, while 1990 saw the release of PC Leisure, a magazine for Personal
Computer (i.e. IBM compatible) games. The next few years saw the demise of all other
formats, leaving just IBM-compatibles on the mass market (apart from the more up-
market Apples) - and at this point all microcomputers were referred to as PCs.

By the mid- to late 1980s computer sales under went a further mini-boom, first fuelled
by the enthusiasm created for ‘multimedia’ and then by interest in the Internet.
Technologically the main change was the move to using CD-ROM for storage. This,
together with increases in processing power each year enabling better graphics and the
widening of the installed base, meant that PCs once again became attractive for software
publishers. By 1997s the retail value of all PC ‘entertainment software’ sales in the UK
was slightly higher than that of consoles, but that category does include more than
games16. Since, games account for at least 70% of entertainment software market17 we
can assume that PCs were by this stage once again providing significant competition to
consoles as a platform for games.

One final digression in this section concerns a technological trajectory which

experienced moderate success but failed to achieve its goals as a mass market product.
This was the ‘multimedia’ alternative to the PC, which had received considerable
attention in the industry in the early to mid-1990s. Led by Philips’ CD-i (Compact Disc
Interactive) but joined by Commodore’s less successful CDTV, this was another form of
software player. It combined CD storage with microprocessors - but without the
keyboard of a PC. In fact, marketing policy deliberately distanced this player from
computer products18. What is of interest in the light of the above history is the concern
of these manufacturers that games would migrate to their new hardware product take it
over so that it becomes merely the latest incarnation of a games machine. Therefore,
although Philips and Commodore signed up a range of publishers to support their
machines, having learnt a lesson from the PC industry, they are still wary of games.
Ultimately both manufacturers wanted their products to become home entertainment
centres, occupying a permanent place in the living room and used by all the family -

16
Screen Digest, ‘Global Interactive Entertainment: Big Growth in Spending’, February, 1997, p.34.
17
Screen Digest, Interactive Entertainment Software: Rapid Maturing Market, June, 1997, p.130
18
Alan Cawson, Leslie Haddon and Ian Miles The Shape of Things to Consume: Delivering Information
Technology into the Home (Aldershot: Avebury, 1995). Also, Roger Silverstone and Leslie Haddon,
‘Design and Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies: Technical Change and
Everyday Life’, in Mansell, R and Silverstone, R. (eds) Communication by Design: The Politics of
Information and Communication Technologies, Oxford University Press, Oxford,1996).
 11

echoing the earlier desire for general purpose PC - and not just the latest games
machines.

Software: Computer Games

In Spacewar, two spaceships engaged in battle, using torpedoes to shoot at each other.
The program operated in real time, in that the graphics reacted instantly to the players'
control, either when turning the spaceship or firing. Action was continuous, leaving little
pause to stop and plan. It called on physical reflexes as much as on strategy.

Why did the first interactive game take this form? In its narrative content, the space
battle reflected the interests of its designer, Steve Russell, who was an avid science
fiction reader and a fan of ‘space opera’ where heroes engage villains in galactic battles.
Whereas descriptions of spaceship encounters and space fleet manoeuvres inspired the
game's scenarios, the gameplay itself - the action - came from a different source. Russell
had wanted to create a more visually stunning 'hack', demonstrating the potential of
interactive computing in general, and so translated the fast pace of a written narrative
into rapid physical action of a game. In so doing, he also acknowledged the influence of
an existing product which was so important in shaping the later development of games:
Spacewar reflected the game-play of pinball.

Once Spacewar was presented to the hacker community, others added new features such
as gravity effects and details of solar systems and developed the first computer game
joysticks to control the motion. There were to be other variations on battle and shooting
themes, with Star Trek becoming the best-known game on mainframe computers. When
alternative types of game were developed, the tastes of game programmers in the male-
dominated computing field continued to be reflected in these texts. (For example,
simulations had been one of the earlier uses for computers - especially simulations of
battles for military purpose. The popular mainframe game Lunar Landing was once
again located within a space setting, simulating control of a space-craft approaching the
moon.)

Mathematically-based programs were also popular. One such program, Game of Life,
simulated ever-changing communities of 'cells' as they formed patterns over generations.
The other best-known genre started with the game Adventure. Appearing much later, in
1976, this computer game drew on the structure of fantasy war-gaming and. in
particular, on the Dungeons and Dragons interests of some programmers. The player
directed an explorer through an underground world where the protagonist fought off
enemies and overcame obstacles through clever tricks in order to find some treasure.
This latter genre became, like Spacewar, a cult game in computer centres. On the home
computer, this adventure format was later to provide the main alternative to the fast-
action games predominating on video games machines19.
19
Gillian Skirrow provides a history of the adventure genre which traces its features back to previous texts
Gillian Skirrow, 'Hellivision: An Analysis of Video Games', in Colin MacCabe (ed.), High Theory/Low
Culture: Analysing Popular Television and Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), pp.
115-42.
 12

Software: Arcade Games

The mix of strategy, speed and physical co-ordination involved in action games well
suited the logic of the arcades - hardly surprising given that this action style of
interactive games had been modelled on pinball. The excitement of fast action provided
the type of thrill which initially attracted players to the coin-op while the brevity of
games (until skill had been acquired) maximised earnings. Yet the new video games
were different from their arcade precursor in one respect: they had at least some
narrative content. Albeit 'thin', the storyline of the games allowed commentators to see
the new games as being comparable to other media texts. Indeed, it was this feature
which so easily enabled concerns about violence on TV and film to be transferred to the
new entertainment machines.

This narrative quality, along with a variety of different possible manoeuvres on screen,
allowed the rate and form of innovation to be very different from the pinball
predecessor. Whereas pinball had evolved very slowly and differences between
machines at any one time were often cosmetic20, a continuous stream of new arcade
video games started to appear by the late 70s. New releases contained not only different
scenarios, but whole new configurations of action: for example, PacMan, where players
control a blob fleeing from danger through a maze. As this pattern of innovation
emerged, video games became part of a 'cultural industry', in much the same way as film
and music were.

Software: Video Games

Most of the early home video games were variations on the bat and ball idea found in
the Odyssey machine and in Pong. Pong itself was an example of a game making the
transition from the arcade to the home machine. Driving games also made this transition,
but the early chip technology caused a considerable time-lag in any such transfer. The
dedicated integrated circuit chip needed for the home games machine could take a year
to develop.

The companies which introduced microprocessor-based technology widened the options

by adding cartridges containing other game forms besides those found in arcades:
noughts and crosses, blackjack and chess. A countervailing tendency arose once
software programming enabled a more speedy transfer of games from the coin-ops.
Home versions could be released while a game was still in vogue in in the arcades. The
coin-ops became even more extensive testing grounds for products which might then be
cross-licensed to the home market.

This relationship bore fruit when one particular arcade game first boosted sales of the
domestic machine. Space Invaders enjoyed unprecedented success as a coin-op,
increasing overall sales in that sector after its introduction in 1978. Once Atari had

20
Edward Trapanski, Special when Lit: A Visual History of the Pinball (New York: Dolphin Books, 1979).
 13

bought the home license and was able to offer a version for their consoles,
programmable sales also increased considerably. Atari was by now the training ground
for many games designers, a number of whom later set up companies to supply the
software cartridges for the Atari console and for competing machines.

Besides crossovers from arcade favourites, a number of film companies, such as 20th
Century-Fox, set up software arms and arranged licensing deals. For example, Atari and
Lucasfilm arranged joint projects. Games were seen by the film industry both as
competition for the same ‘entertainment dollar’ and as a new outlet for cross-licensing.
However, although scenarios and plots of home games became more varied, the action
game-play remained a stable product in the industry.

While it lasted, this growth of the video games industry led to innovations in publicity
and distribution. The increased rate of new releases was now covered by video games
magazines, carrying news and reviews of the latest games available. Meanwhile,
existing games producers experimented with novel means of delivering games to
players, whereby telephone companies downloaded the games to homes by phone. Both
these moves were repeated when games appeared on home computers.

Software: Microcomputer Games

Initial interest in microcomputer games came from the hobbyists who both produced and
consumed this software. The hobbyist magazines had always devoted some space to
games, providing this software genre with respectability. Within a few years of the first
home computers being released, a wave of books introducing programming to a more
general public relied on games to explain the structure of computer languages.
Eventually, even the manuals which were packaged with the hardware adopted this
approach.

Microcomputer games soon proved popular outside original hobbyist circles, especially
among male youth. Since the previous video games consoles had made less impact in
the UK than in the US, computers provided many people with their first chance to play
home-based games. This demand encouraged more hobbyists to establish their own part-
time mail-order ventures, selling software for the new home computers. Aided by the
cheap cassette technology, these initiatives developed into a small cottage industry.
Within a few years, teenagers who had received the early computers as gifts provided a
further source of games programmers. Although this software industry was relatively
small, the national press carried stories of successful entrepreneurial schoolboys and this
fuelled further interest. Consequently, software which aided game design proved to be
very popular.

By 1983, several substantial publishing, record and video companies (e.g. Mirror Group,
Virgin) had entered the computer games field and transformed software production for
this increasingly lucrative market into an industry organised on the same model as their
other interests. In this restructuring process, a majority of the small start-up firms, as
 14

well as others who had tried to cash in on the games boom, went bankrupt,
amalgamated, or left the market.

The 'burst bubble' coverage which home computers received in 1983-84 made some
wonder if games, like the hardware, had also been a fad. But this was certainly not the
case. Like hardware, computer games had a lower media profile by the mid-80s and
games were commanding less shelf space. But following the reduction in the number of
software houses, the games industry achieved an overall degree of stability which has
continued to the present day. Meanwhile, since the early 80s international sales have
become increasingly important to British software houses, the UK becoming a major
exporter of games once PCs became popular in other European countries.

Under the new industry regime, games writing became routinised and continuous
instead of haphazard and occasional. By the late 1980s, active marketing of the latest
product guaranteed sufficient chart hits for profitability while cheaper 'budget' software
gave old products a new life in compilations. There were also some innovations in
distribution with software being sold through a wide range of outlets including garages
and corner shops.

Finally, the industry started to operate in conjunction with a new type of computer
magazine, geared mainly to leisure and entertainment. These journals gave far more
coverage to game developments than their hobby-orientated predecessors. These new
publicity outlets had the effect of systematically promoting games, often relegating other
software to the fringes. Yet the newly emerging magazines also went beyond reviewing
games, carrying regular features on how to break into games programs in order to see
their inner workings and how to make changes so that the games operated differently.
The hobbyist project had infiltrated games-playing, adding a new dimension to the
activity for some users.

Software in the 1990s

Despite all these signs of the durability of games, many publishers in the 1980s had still
felt that they nevertheless remained a 'fringe' entertainment, rather than a 'mainstream'
one like music. Several trade associations were created over the years to promote the
industry as a whole. One problem which the games industry identified was its low
profile in the mass media, so there were the occasional attempts to gain prominence for
programmers as media personalities or to obtain newspaper and TV coverage through
promotions. But what made more of a difference to the wider visibility of games was
the emergence of TV programmes such as Games Master and Bad Influence,
culminating in programmes reviewing games alongside cinema films and videos
releases. Films were also made of two of the very popular games: Mario Brothers and
Street Fighter.

Another (ongoing) concern in the industry was about the perceived lack of creativity in
actual games content. Admittedly, part of the worry about a lack of 'real' innovation
relates to the mechanism whereby successful new games are immediately followed by a
 15

spate of near copies. This process is not very different from the record and film
industries, where producers follow successful formulae21. Some of the late 80s games,
such as Tetris and Little Computer People, had started to break away from existing
genres and there were always new arcade hits to convert and new items to license from
the other cultural industries. Occasionally, totally new sub-genres appeared, such as the
Kung-Fu, quiz, and horror games. Even the soap operas EastEnders found its way onto
the games format. Nevertheless, some asked whether this level of innovation was
enough. Did changes in scenario and slight changes in the playing skills required
provide enough novelty?

One approach to changing the content and nature of games was to separate the role of
programmer from games designer. This involved drawing on the expertise of staff from
other entertainment media, such as music, television and film, to complement the
technological skills of existing games writers. In addition, throughout the 1990s games
saw incremental but significant improvements in terms of more detailed and smoother
graphics and lifelike sounds and adding video clips and digital audio quality music to
animation sequences.

The last development was around on-line games. On the one hand, on-line networks
provided a new means for distributing games - by downloading them to consoles or PCs.
But in addition considerable industry interest has been shown in on-line playing,
including playing multi-user games. In fact, such on-line games have been in existence
for some years - the famous one called MUD was played on the Arpanet before it
evolved into the Internet, and British Telecom ran MUD on its videotex service
Micronet from 1985 until the whole service was closed down in 199022. But the rise of
the Internet helped to generate much more interest in this form of games-playing, with
some very optimistic forecasts for the Millennium.

The Consumption of Games: Concerns

Moving on now to the whole are of consumption, we start with the negative reactions to
games. Despite hopes that interactive games would give arcades a new image, the new
coin-ops were starting to arouse opposition as early as the end of the 1970s23. The
criticisms emanating from the anti-games lobby were diverse.

21
M. Litwark, Reel Power: The Struggle for Influence in the New Hollywood (London: Sidgwick and
Jackson, 1987), p. 100.
22
Alan Cawson, Leslie Haddon and Ian Miles The Shape of Things to Consume: Delivering Information
Technology into the Home (Aldershot: Avebury, 1995).
23
See Terri Toles, 'Video Games and American Military Ideology', in Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko
(eds.) The Critical Communications Reviews vol. III: Popular Culture and Media Events (Norsood: Ablex,
1985), pp. 207-23; Nancy Needham, 'Thirty Billion Quarters Can't Be Wrong: or Can They? A Look at the
Impact of Video Games on American Youth’, Today's Education, 1982-3 Annual, 1983, pp. 52-5; John
Price, 'Social Science Research on Video Games', pp. 111-25; Eric Egli and Lawrence Meyers, 'The Role
of Video Game Playing in Adolescent Life', pp. 309-12; EL News, 'Anti-Video Game Movement
Gathering Momentum', Electronic Learning vol. 1 no. 3, 1982, pp. 12-13.
 16

In the US, moral panics resulted in some much publicised by-laws to regulate arcades.
At a national level, the Surgeon General issued a warning that video games might be
dangerous and that children might find them addictive, while the National Coalition on
Television Violence extended its area of interest to include the new games. The US was
not alone. Perhaps the most vigorous attack on video games came from the Philippines
where President Marcos ordered 300 machines to be dismantled, smashed or
surrendered to military police within fifteen days because of their detrimental effect on
morals and on youth discipline. Even in the UK, the Labour MP George Foulkes led a
campaign in 1981 to curb the 'menace' of video games, mainly because of their addictive
properties. His 'Control of Space Invaders (and other Electronic Games) Bill' was only
narrowly defeated in the Commons24.

One set of worries focused on the effect of the technology underlying these games.
Critics feared what they saw as the ‘compulsive’ behaviour engendered by electronic
games - an issue previously raised in relation to the 'narcotic' effect of television25. This
fear of addiction was reinforced by discussions of the ‘holding power' attributed to
computer environments per se, as manifest in earlier concern about the 'unhealthy'
attraction of hackers to computer technology26. Those opposed to games argued that
players were becoming adjuncts to the machine, and thus predisposed to be anti-social.
Anxiety intensified because the majority of users were adolescent, that time in their life
being thought necessary for developing interpersonal skills rather than for being isolated
with 'things'. A number of American psychology studies followed from these
commentaries, trying to evaluate whether the use of these electronic devices was
addictive, or led to lack of social skills. Some studies tackled slightly different concerns
about the violent nature of games. Although seemingly about games content and their
scenarios, these debates also referred to the underlying technology of the media which
was supposed to desensitise users to aggression.

Other critics painted a very different picture, focusing instead on the collective nature of
video games culture. Many parents and local community spokespeople recognised that
arcade machines were a gathering point for youth27. The games were felt to be
encouraging young people to 'hang around', a view which tapped into traditional fears
about arcades being 'corrupt and corrupting places'28. Arcade video games were seen as
being the new locus for a separate youth culture, distracting young people from more
constructive activities. Consequently, a number of studies framed their analyses of
arcade life in terms of delinquency.
24
Neil Frude, The Intimate Machine: Close Encounters with New Computers (London: Century, 1983), p.
68.
25
This same concern has been carried into writing from an overtly socialist perspective, as in Tony
Solomonides and Les Levidow, Compulsive Technology: Computers as Culture (London: Free Association
Books, 1985), p. 6.
26
Discussed in Sherry Turkle, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (London: Granada,
1984).
27
Tom Panelas, 'Adolescents and Video Games: Consumption of Leisure and the Social Construction of the
Peer Group', Youth and Society vol. 15 no. 1, September 1983, pp. 51-65.
28
Desmond Ellis, 'Video Arcades, Youth and Trouble', Youth and Society vol. 16 no. 1, September 1984,
pp. 47-8.
 17

The location of video games within arcades meant that the new machines were
incorporated into the existing social activities of these milieux and thus reactivated old
anxieties. Amusement parks and many of the other public sites where coin-op machines
were found, were part of street culture. They were mainly male, particularly young male,
preserves. Some girls were present in these contexts and there were some girl players;
after all, the arcade and other public locations were meeting places. Yet observational
studies found that the proportion of boys varied between 70 and 90 per cent29. So, while
the new technology may have been brought in to mark changes, it was soon slotted into
a nexus of relations. Very traditional fears about 'deviancy' and working-class, male
youth underlay some of the apparently new alarm about video games-playing30.

The values, rules, and rituals which these young males had built up in the pinball
arcades were transferred to the video game. They shaped the whole experience of
interactive games-playing. For instance, many would-be players served apprenticeships
as spectators. The public display of skill was important. There were times for discussing
tactics and giving tips. In sum, while the games were played individually, the activity
remained grounded within the social life of the peer group.

Games-playing: Gender and Games

Just as many of the fears about microcomputer games persisted from the arcade days, so
analyses of gender and games have not changed significantly from when they were first
formulated in relation to the coin-ops.

The most frequent argument has been that the aggressive/destructive/violent/mastery

nature of many games is a masculine quality31. Early critics also argued that scenarios
such as science-fiction settings were male-orientated32. Stereotypical male and female
characters appeared in the plot, or were offered as roles which players could adopt33.
The nature of the colour in graphics was also discussed in gender terms (e.g. more
colourful graphics being more attractive to women)34. The case against sexist content
seems more plausible when some of the more pornographic 'adult' games are considered.
For example, the controversial arcade game Custer's Revenge had rape as its goal35. The
next step taken by some of these commentators was to explain the content by reference

29
There seems to be little public market research available on arcades. These figures are derived from a
compilation of small-scale observational studies
30
This concern about anti-social behaviour and isolation also partly reflects a general reservation about
male over-involvement with 'things', and especially with technology.
31
An example of this type of analysis would be Nancy Kreinberg and Elizabeth Stage, 'EQUALS in
Computer Technology', in Jan Zimmerman (ed.), The Technological Woman: Interfacing with Tomorrow
(New York: Praeger, 1983), p. 255.
32
Nancy Needham, 'Thirty Billion Quarters Can't Be Wrong: or Can They?’ p.54
33
Terri Toles, Video Games and American Military Ideology', p. 214.
34
Tekla Perry et al., Video Games: the Electronic Big Bang, p. 26; John Price, 'Social Science Research on
Video Games', p. 122.
35
D. Talbot, 'Pac-Man Kills Kids: Video Horrors', Mother Jones, April 1983. The game was withdrawn
after a campaign by Women Against Pornography.
 18

to the conditions of production - that the vast majority of game designers were male36.
Clearly, a number of the early male designers of arcade games had come from a
background of playing Spacewar - which seemed to have severely restricted their
creative horizons.

However, the picture was rendered a little more complicated when, in the late 70s, the
game PacMan was found to be nearly as popular with women as with men, challenging
assumptions about the masculinity of arcade games. Analysts sought explanations in the
particular content of PacMan. One commentator argued that 'directing the faceless,
featureless PacMan through its model-home maze is less threatening and more closely
related to hide-and-seek games than to nuclear holocaust'37.

The few female games designers in the industry suggested a very different mode of
analysis, emphasising the changing context of games-playing38. PacMan appeared when
coin-op games were actually becoming more pervasive than pinball had ever been and
when video games had achieved some respectability outside the arcade in places such as
lounges and restaurants. These designers argued that whereas the arcade atmosphere had
been less comfortable, the new sites were more socially acceptable places for women. A
similar point, in fact, had been argued in relation to pinball itself. It was only when
American suburban shopping centres decided that it was profitable to allow arcades into
the plazas earlier in the 1970s that some of the plusher chains first managed to attract a
few women pinball players. The history of pinball thus sup-ports the argument that an
important factor in the success of PacMan with women was that video games were
becoming generally more accessible.

Yet, even this analysis fails to address the nature of the 'interest’ which is involved. As
in the case of a record, a particular game may be enjoyable to a wide range of people.
Alternatively, games-playing may be an activity in which many people would happily
engage on an occasional basis. PacMan benefited from this less 'committed' form of
interest. But the situation where games have a public currency within particular groups
of young males is another matter. This involves a continuous interest in games in
general, and entails a more regular participation in a collective activity. It was to this
core of enthusiasts that the constant flow of new game releases appeared to be
principally addressed and it was this level of interest associated with the arcades and
other male-dominated locales which formed the basis for a greater enthusiasm among
young males for both home video games and the later computer games. The arcade not
only provided a familiarity with games-playing skills, but communal practices were
carried into the use of domestic machines - despite the image of the isolated games-
player in the home.

Games-playing: Games and Hobby PCs

36
Perry and others estimated that there were about 100 video game designers in the US when they were
writing - about 4 or 5 of these were women mostly designing home video games. Tekla Perry et al., 'Video
Games: the Electronic Big Bang', pp. 28-9.
37
Sue Smith, "'Coin Detected in Pocket": Videogames as Icons’, p. 150.
38
. Tekla Perry et al., 'Video Games: the Electronic Big Bang', p. 31.
 19

Although video games players were very significant, they were not the only key actors
shaping the experience of games. We also need to account for the interest of computer
hobbyists. As with the hackers who designed the earlier games, the enthusiasts who built
and bought the first microcomputers in the mid-70s sought ways to show this black box
in operation. The first demonstrations involved controlling sound, and these were soon
followed by programs which produced a display of flashing lights. Games played the
same role, demonstrating the PC in action and illustrating the computer's capabilities. In
fact, games became one of the first forms of software to be sold as a product, with some
hobbyists converting the classic mainframe and minicomputer games to the smaller
machines, as well as copying the arcade favourites.

Games also constituted a new type of programming challenge: squeezing the complex
structures designed for minis and mainframes onto the small memory of a
microcomputer. More generally, games were still vehicles for learning about the
machines. Programs such as Spacewar could be justified as an exercise in controlling
animated computer graphics, while adventure games involved planning and familiarity
with the structure of databases. Moreover, it was possible to program and run games
even with very limited equipment.

Finally, these male hobbyists also saw games-playing as being of interest for its own
sake for reasons that went beyond the particular narrative content of these products.
Games were puzzles within a computerised environment. As such, they were somewhat
like programming itself. Thus, early computer magazines presented games-playing as
acceptable activity - as a source of relaxation in the midst of programming. This
community never rejected playing as a misuse of machines: games were one of their
many applications. These hobbyists were not only to provide a market for the new
computer game products, they were also a legitimising force, pointing to the potentially
constructive side of this software genre in contrast to the commentators who later cast
games in a dimmer light.

Games-playing: Male Youth and Computer Games

Microcomputers reached a far wider audience during the 1980s, especially amongst
male youth39. Part of the appeal lay in computing per se, part in the fact that these early
forms of PC provided a new vehicle for interactive games. But there was always more to
games-playing than the moment in front of the screen40.

Talking about computers and games, both in and out of school, became an important
dimension of boys' discussions. As with music, there was always scope for evaluating

39
As a rough guide, surveys suggest that boys' use of, knowledge of and desire for computers is at least
twice as great as that of girls. Boys are by far the biggest users of PCs, followed by girls and then adult
males. Details are outlined in Leslie Haddon, The Roots and Early History of the British Home Computer
Market, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, London 1988.
40
Based on the author's research which involved interviews with boy and girls and observations in a boys'
computer club.
 20

the latest releases and, as in the arcades, passing on game-play tips. Moreover, because
the computer was programmable, homebrew games and special effects could also be
shown to or even developed with peers. Then there was the exchange of software within
school, either for copying purposes, or simply to borrow. Nor was school, including
computing clubs, the only location for such interaction. Enthusiastic games-players
sometimes transformed existing computer clubs and microcomputer shops into
alternative arcades. Shop managers shared mixed feelings about such development with
exhibitors at computer shows: hordes of players monopolising machines might be
deterring other, less game-orientated, custom.

All these public settings provided opportunities to try out products, to play in collective
settings and to make contact with those who shared an interest- which could mean a
chance to exchange games and other software. Moreover, by appropriating these public
spaces boys, albeit perhaps relatively few boys, became very visible to the producers of
hardware, software and magazines. Little wonder that these staff and other
commentators so easily assumed that PCs and games-playing were a totally male
domain, and showed surprise that girls demonstrated any interest at all. The actual
situation was far more complex.

One reason for detailing the nature of boys' collective interest is to underline the fact
that this social dimension simply did not exist for girls. In contrast to the beliefs of some
commentators, available statistics show that girls did actually use computers - mainly for
playing games. But behind the figures we need to see the difference in the experience of
games. Like boys, girls were not simply isolated users, they played with other family
members and with friends who visited their homes. But unlike boys, that was usually the
limit of their interest; for girls the currency which computer talk and games play had
among some young male peers did not exist.

Girls would usually rely on brothers to inform them about the latest game and there was
simply not the same amount of talk about games, nor the practice of exchanging them.
Few girls visited or played games in the various public sites which were geared to
microcomputers and when they did, attendance was not so much with male peers as with
family. At home, girls tended to have less say than boys as to which games should be
purchased, often playing whatever games were available. Hence, despite all the analysis
of masculine games texts, the majority of games played by girls were also of the fast,
arcade-style action, reflecting the general predominance of this genre.

Games-playing in the 1990s

For children maturing after the boom of the 1980s, while games may have lost some
glamour as a latest innovation, they had become thoroughly established as one more
option amongst their repertoire of activities. But it occupied a modest place on the
whole. In one UK survey, where in fact video games-playing was in the top three
preferred pastimes of only 20% of children, games were for the majority a time-filler to
 21

occupy moments of boredom41. Reinforcing the earlier discussions in this chapter of the
social nature of games, almost all of those surveyed sometimes played two-player games
and two-thirds played at a friends houses while a number mentioned their pleasures in
watching other people play and talking about games. This would fit in with
observations from other qualitative research conducted by the author42, as would the
finding that many parents (about 40% in that survey) regulated the amount of time their
children could play - just as they regulated the amount of time spent in front of the TV.

While there had always been some adults who played games, the difference as we move
into the 1990s and beyond is that there is now a generation effect as the teenagers and
young adults of the 1980s grew older. The fact that games are not simply children’s
toys is underlined by the continuity of games-playing amongst this cohort who had
grown up with games. A mid-1990 UK survey showed that 30% of 16-bit consoles were
17-3043 (with 11% older still) and looking at subsequent 1997 European data, the
average age of Sony Playstation owners was 22 and 45% of them were in employment44.

Partly because of the age of this cohort, qualitative research has recorded especially
young single adults again using games mostly as a time-filler between other activities,
when spare moments arise or as a way of winding down after work45. As in the case of
children, the novelty of a newly acquired game can lead to more intense playing for a
while. On the whole, though, and while enjoyable, games-playing is once again a
secondary activity that would not displace, for example, going out with friends. At this
stage in their life course, that same qualitative research suggest that there does not
appear to be much difference between men and women as regards this way of using
games.

What changes with the formation of shared households and especially the arrival of
children is the moments of individual free disposable time are fewer compared to singles
because of new demands and social commitments to others. There are examples of
people continuing to play routinely, if not for much time in total, up until the birth of
children and then those spare moments are lost, accounted for by childcare
responsibilities. That said, it was still possible to find mainly males in their 20s and 30s
who could carve out some moments for a quick games - or for going on the Internet
which has now emerged as an equivalent alternative in some respects. But because of
existing gender roles, the demands on and hence time structures of married women with
children change dramatically from thsoe of single adult women. Just as such women

41
Guy Cumberbatch, Andrea Maguire and Samanatha Woods, Children and Video Games: An Exploratory
Study, Aston University, Birmingham 1993.
42
Leslie Haddon, Locating the Virtual Community in the Households of Europe, a report for NCR, 1998.
43
Michael Hayes and Stuart Dinsey, Games War. Video Games - A Business Review, London, Bowerdean,
1995, p.13.
44
Screen Digest, Interactive Entertainment Software: Rapid Maturing Market, June, 1997.
45
From the author’s Internet study cited above, but also reflected in German research: Daniela Schlütz, The
Indirect Effects of the Home Computer: A Qualitative Study on How the Use of Computer Entertainment
Affects Everyday Leisure Time, unpublished Masters Thesis, September 1997, London School of
Economics.
 22

had found it difficult to find time for, and to justify, exploring computing in general or
following up any interest in games in the 1980s46, so too for the next generation.

Lessons to be learnt

While there are now numerous analysis of interactive games as texts47, this chapter has
offered an account of the social shaping of games as a cultural form. It has charted the
complex lineages through which these emerged and developed, including numerous
actors and different manifestations. It has explored the various tensions that have existed
over the years, uncertainties over whether games were a fad, a marginal form of
entertainment or alternatively whether they posed a threat to the identity of various
hardware products. While a recognisable cultural industry has now evolved, its fortunes
have been somewhat volatile, with different business models, changing hardware
platforms and on-going concerns about the nature and quality of innovation.

That history has also drawn attention to the different constituencies of users who have
played various roles in supporting games from the earliest days: in developing and
refining them, in making them visible through demonstration, in using and acquiring
them as well as in building a culture of games-playing. In other words, we have seen the
social shaping of consumption as well as reactions to how that consumption was
represented. In particular, to understand differences in gender, this account has pointed
to the need to understand the history and context of consumption as well as the nature of
these texts, the different modes of gendered consumption and, into the 1990s, what
games-playing mean for the first mass market generation of users as they grow older.

46
Leslie Haddon, ‘Researching Gender and Home Computers’ in Sørensen, K. and Berg, A (eds),
Technology and Everyday Life: Trajectories and Transformations, University of Trondheim, Trondheim,
1990, pp.89-108
47
Apart from Skirrow cited above, these include Mary Fuller and Henry Jenkins, ‘Nintendo and New
World Travel Writing: A Dialogue’ and Ted Friedman, ‘Making Sense of Software: Computer Games and
Interactive Textuality’, both in Steven Jones (ed) Cybersociety: Computer Mediated Communication and
Community, London, Sage, 1995, pp.57-72 and pp.73-89; David Myers, ‘Computer Games Genres’, Play
and Culture, No.3, 1990, pp.286-301; David Myers, ‘Computer Games Semiotics’, Play and Culture,
No.4, 1991, pp.334-45; David Myers, ‘Time, Symbol Transformation and Computer Games’, Play and
Culture, No.5, 1992, pp.441-57.