Building Blocks: Toward a More Substantial Introduction

So here we have a rough draft of a literature review starting. I thought I would post this up here. I think that I will post a couple more revisions...or at least will continue posting them until the first rough draft is complete. Once that is done, I will begin focusing more on the analysis of the game through the blog. The grammar here is very rough, so please forgive me. Also, there may be a few logic leaps I need to add some grounding too.

This is a paper that wants to look at video games. A video game is a game played in digital space via a dedicated console (SOURCE). By digital space I mean to say that it is a space created by computer programmers that is manufactured by a video game console. This console, typically a specialized grouping of hardware meant to connect to a graphic display (typically a television), processes and displays the digital space that the player then explores. What this paper wants to do specifically is look at what is happening inside the game and look at where those things are coming from in culture. Why does it matter where the things within a game come from? Well, as Johan Huizinga once told us, “In the twin union of play and culture, play is primary” (46).

Play
(Coming Soon)

Cultural Proximity (Will add more on translation and tech answers to culture problems)
Video Games are recent cultural phenomena. By recent, I mean to say video games did not exist until technology that could display digital data was ‘hacked’ in 1961 to emulate missile launches in space (SOURCE). While some people would say that video games began with a game created by Steve Russell called Spacewar created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961 (SOURCE), for the sakes of this paper, video games are run via a “dedicated console” whereas Computer Games are just that, games on a computer. This distinction is rarely made in the present as it is no longer useful, but it is useful to make here for two reasons. One, there is a marked distinction between American console games and Japanese console games. Two, American computer games have begun to be American console games (SOURCE). This distinction will become clearer in a second.

The history of the computer is inexorably tied to the speed of processors and the graphic displays that show the result of that processing (VIDEO GAME DEFINITION). Faster processors means more code processed more quickly. This code allows more commands to be sent to a display, thus allowing for what began as little dots to become beings that move, act, and talk like us; video games emulate culture. The atmosphere that video games take place in are quickly becoming familiar streets and cities. Some new games boast that their gameplay is so advanced that they can even emulate sexual relations between same sex or different sex partners. Video games are quickly becoming a place where we can explore questions we can’t explore in the real world (SOURCE – CASTRONOVA?). Because video games are meant to emulate culture, the culture those video games tends to take on a special meaning. Puzzles that might seem easy for the culture they are created in might not be as easy outside of that culture; characters meant to be comedic might be repulsive to other cultures. I have made a logical jump here; video games are a worldwide phenomenon (SOURCE). Video games began in America. As stated, the game often associated with the term “first video game” is called Spacewar! and was created in 1962. This game lead to a series of events that American popular culture inevitably caused video games to be considered a fad.

After Spacewar! was released, similar video games began to appear around the world. Pong was the first video game to appear in consumer’s homes. Because of the lack of processing power, Pong was a single machine meant to be used on a single television. From Pong arose a myriad of consoles that were very different from Pong. These game machines were created to run proprietary cartridges, meaning, they would only run games made for that particular hardware configuation. The number of these machines and the number of cartridges eventually reached dizzying heights. At its peak in the early 1980s, there were five machines available: The Atari 2600, The Magnavox Odyssey 2, The Intellevision, the Colecovision, and the Atari 5200. Each of these systems had hundreds of games available for them. The market that had appeared after the success of Pong had flooded itself and eventually collapsed around 1984. The major company in video gaming at the time, Atari, was sold off in pieces. Pop culture then labeled video games as a passing fad.

While America was not ready for anymore video games, they were not prepared for what came next. Seeing that the video game market had collapsed under its own weight, Nintendo of Japan had a plan. In 1986, after three years of trials in Japan, Nintendo introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System. By labeling it as an entertainment system and by offering peripherals that would attach to the machine, Nintendo wanted to convince consumers that this wasn’t just another Atari. Also, Nintendo did something that other companies in America had not, Nintendo declared complete control over the production of software. This meant that any game created for their Entertainment System was sent to Nintendo and Nintendo decided how many copies of games would be produced, when the game would be released, if at all (SOURCE). This was the creation of the video game industry. It was regulated and dominated by Japanese interests for almost twenty years. It was also at the creation of the video game market that American software makers went to the then blossoming personal computer game market to continue making games in the way they wanted to (SOURCE). The introduction of this system signaled a tremendous shift in video games that began to end when the Sony Playstation was released but was solidified when the American created Xbox appeared (SOURCE).

This paper will examine the themes present in video games now that they have achieved a modicum of cultural proximity. Previous literature on video games has revolved around the advertising of and basic premise or motivation for characters. These studies almost all originate in a time when Japan was still the primary location of hardware and software manufacturing. This paper attempts to close a gap and take a step forward in the study of cultural relevancy with regard to video games. This paper will be split into four parts. First, I will examine the literature about video games and feminist literature about the power of messages in media. Second, I will describe my method of study. Third, I will describe the themes present in video games that came out during my time with them. These themes were not present in the data but emerged ancillary to it. And lastly, I will examine the data I collected by playing these games.