Why collect gaming magazines?
Posted by Jon-Paul C. Dyson - 08/21/09 at 01:08 pm
Game enthusiast Joseph Qualls recently donated more than 750 back issues of video game magazines to NCHEG. The magazines, mostly from the 1990s, wonderfully document the industry’s transition into the 32-bit era and beyond. Select almost any time from that decade and you will learn about the state of video games from this collection. Take January, 1995, for example. Want to know what was hot that month? Electronic Gaming Monthly thought it was Killer Instinct; GamePro featured Earthworm Jim; and Game Players touted Mega Man X2. The console war was heating up, as technology leaders like 3DO faced competition from new rival game systems like the Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn. (Nintendo also debuted the Virtual Boy, with Gamefan noting optimistically that “Nintendo plans to sell about 3,000,000 units and 14,000,000 cartridges in the first year of the system’s release.”)
Rereading these magazines reminds us that preserving the history of electronic games means much more than saving just the games themselves. In its collecting, NCHEG tries to gather materials that reflect the entirety of the gaming experience, from production to consumption. (You can read more about NCHEG’s interpretive approach here: http://www.ncheg.org/files/ConcentricCircles.pdf.) The history and culture of gaming cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the vital role of gaming magazines for several reasons:
1) Magazines document the games. When scholars research the history of video games, they will need sources to understand them. The games themselves are traditionally the main source of information, but video game magazines provide quick summaries of the games themselves, supply plenty of screen shots, and contextualize them. Perhaps even more importantly, these magazines help to explain how a game is played and what its strengths and weaknesses are, while also highlighting why it’s different or similar to its predecessors. Plus, gaming magazines provide this data in a compact, easily accessible format.
2) Magazines are part of play. Magazines are important not only for their game descriptions but because they form an element of the play culture that surrounds electronic games. Play begins with anticipation, and awaiting a game heightens the play experience. With their sneak peeks, previews, and status updates, magazines facilitate this emotion.
3) Magazines help establish and sustain gaming culture. They provide information to gamers and connect gamers with others in the gaming community. The mere fact that they are published reminds readers that, “Hey, there are a lot of other people like me who think video games are really awesome.” Increasingly, game sites on the Web are serving this need, yet many of these online sites build on models first developed in print journalism.
4) Paper lasts forever. OK, not forever, but properly preserved magazines will last for a very long time. Historians will not need to worry about what platform a game runs on or if a floppy will fail. Paper doesn’t suffer bit rot. Historians 50, 100, 200, and even 500 years from now will be able to research and learn about the history of electronic games by studying these colorful periodicals.
For these reasons we’re especially pleased with this addition to our existing print collections. If you want to learn more about the history of electronic games magazines, I recommend Kevin Gifford’s Game Mag Weaseling column in GameSetWatch. And if you have old electronic game magazines you would like to donate, please contact us at NCHEG–we’d love to add to our periodical collection and ensure these magazines’ preservation.
Alternate Interfaces and Project Natal
Posted by Marc Check - 08/19/09 at 07:08 pm
The first time I played a video game without holding or stomping on a controller was at a 2002 traveling museum exhibit. There was no joystick, no steering wheel, no pads to stomp on–simply cameras that sensed my body movements. The interactive graphics were fairly primitive, but they allowed me to transform into a soccer goalie using my arms and legs to defend my goal from an onslaught of soccer balls. In another instance, I was able to snowboard around obstacles by leaning my body in different directions. This unique museum experience is one of the reasons I fell in love with exhibit technologies.
Over the next several years I saw various additional iterations of this technology, including equipment that sensed the shadows of bodies rather than the bodies themselves. Each new iteration offered superior control and demonstrated how video game physics and interfaces were evolving rapidly.
With the introduction of the Wii to home console gamers in 2006, these previously unique museum interactives lost some of their luster. Controlling a video game through body movements was no longer novel. The Wii affordably brought this ability to the masses, in their own homes.
The museum interactives still have have a significant advantage over the Wii, as they do not require a controller. However, they remain expensive, and consumers are more than willing to accept a small, unobtrusive controller that is as close as one could come to having no controller. In fact, sales of alternate Wii controllers such as steering wheels, guitars, faux golf clubs, a myriad of light guns, dance pads, and nunchuks actually illustrate a movement away from controller minimalism.
Alternate controls for video games have existed for a long time, and with great diversity. Perusing the NCHEG collections one encounters a variety of console and arcade controls that rekindle fond memories for those of us who grew up in this golden age. DK Bongos of Donkey Konga; the Sony EyeToy; bicycle pedal controls for arcade games; various dance pads; and several iterations of light guns dating back to the Magnavox Odyssey (for which Ralph Baer also originally designed a golf ball alternate controller – hit from atop a joystick) are but a few examples of the diversity of alternate game interfaces, and all still required a wired connector of some sort. Now, even though the Wii has introduced us to the wireless world of alternate interfaces, so far nothing has offered the same controller-less experience for home gaming that I first experienced several years ago on that museum exhibit floor.
Perhaps the closest experience to date is the Sony EyeToy, first sold in 2003, which utilizes a basic webcam to capture natural body movement. Anyone who used the early models of the Sony EyeToy can attest to the limitations of the technology, especially in low-light circumstances. Sony answered this limitation by introducing an LED wand, which is more readily recognized by the camera. In 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony built on this concept and although a demonstration of the latest EyeToy technology proves to be more responsive and graphically slick than its ancestor, the more responsive and interesting applications still require a handheld wand controller.
Another emerging technology announced at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo may bring true natural user control to the home console. Microsoft’s Project Natal promises a full-body motion controller that strips the player of even the minimal handheld controller and responds not just to body movement, but also to voice recognition, and biometric subtleties such as face recognition. Microsoft claims backwards compatibility with all Xbox models and I hope the promise is true.
I’ve been waiting almost a decade to see this controller-less interfacing brought to the home console. Video demonstrations available on the Project Natal web site and YouTube (like the ones below) illustrate a fairly responsive interface. If this technology works as advertised, it will be a true quantum leap in home console gaming, but skeptics question the feasibility of that claim. Microsoft has still not announced a product release date, leading many to wonder if the technical challenges of making such an affordable and reliable interface is still a bit out of reach, even for them. As great as the demos look, they are simply that – controlled, often enhanced, marketing demonstrations. (Note the disclaimer on the Microsoft video that this is a “Product vision: actual features and functionality may vary.”)
I am at least optimistic that controller-less interfaces are being developed by the bigger players in the market, even if this technology doesn’t reach the home market for a couple of years. The possibilities of game play are endless, and these opportunities will accelerate the time it takes for the public to realize that video games are not a sedentary pastime.
My Wii seldom causes me to break a sweat anymore, but Project Natal might.
Game Boy’s 20th Birthday, Already?
Posted by Eric Wheeler - 08/12/09 at 01:08 pm
Can it be 20 years already for Game Boy?
In 1989, Indiana Jones embarked on his “Last Crusade,” Joe Montana and Jerry Rice led the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl victory, and Milli Vanilli lip-synced their way to the top of the charts. That year wasn’t simply about landmarks such as those or Arsenio Hall’s rise to fame and Pete Rose’s fall from grace, however. It also marked the beginning of the Game Boy era.
This summer marks the 20th anniversary of the North American launch of Nintendo’s iconic Game Boy handheld game console—the innovative system that transformed the electronic games market by popularizing handheld gaming.
Just how did this all begin?
Nintendo scored a huge hit with the 1985 release of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), a home video-game console that delivered a fun, high-quality gaming experience and made the Nintendo brand dominant during the late 1980s and beyond. Gaming hardware was (and still is) the cornerstone of the interactive entertainment industry, but it was the games, stored on external media, that led to sales and market share. Popular NES game titles, such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, captivated video-game players in Asian and North American markets alike.
Nintendo’s 1989 release of the handheld Game Boy followed the incredible success of NES. Such cartridge-based systems offered consumers (and manufacturers) the advantage of an infinitely expandable library of game titles. Nintendo wasn’t the first game company to produce a handheld system with interchangeable game cartridges. Milton Bradley released the handheld Microvision a decade earlier, but had only limited financial success due to poor graphics and limited game titles. Nintendo’s system, however, proved a resounding success.
Game Boy was lightweight with a built-in screen, controls, and speaker. The unit’s small size made it highly portable, just the right size to fit in the pouch of a backpack or a jacket pocket. In contrast, most video games to this point were played either on a cabinet game in an arcade or on a home console attached to a television. Players brought Game Boy to school, to summer camp, and to the back seat of the family automobile.
The first version of Game Boy shipped with the puzzle game Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov’s block-stacking classic. Tetris was available for play on personal computers years earlier but it became a sensation as the “pack-in” cartridge for Game Boy. This expanded Nintendo’s audience beyond its core adolescent following, as did the release of Super Mario Land. The hits kept coming—the most significant being the role-playing game Pokémon, released in 1995. Pokémon quickly became a global phenomenon, leading to sales of nearly 200 million video games, and the merchandising of signature characters for trading cards, manga, and anime.
As technology advanced, Nintendo refreshed Game Boy with enhanced color displays, better sound, and more compact forms. These incremental innovations led to more than a half-dozen distinct models in the Game Boy series, from the original unit to the current Game Boy Micro, and scores of accessories. In total, Game Boy sales have topped 200 million making, this by far the best-selling handheld system ever. In 2004, Nintendo launched the handheld Nintendo DS and, although a successor to Game Boy, it drew heavily on the successes of its iconic predecessor.
I don’t know about you, but I certainly loved having the Game Boy along for high school bus rides or to kill time between classes when I was in college. It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years already, but it’s easy to see how this classic, in all its iterations, changed the gaming landscape and brought the gaming experience to an increasingly diverse gaming audience.
NCHEG Advisor Tallarico Praises Museum During Visit
Posted by Marc Check - 08/06/09 at 03:08 pm
Tommy Tallarico, Executive Producer of Video Games Live, made a special visit to Strong National Museum of Play recently to spend time with the CHEGheads and museum President and CEO, Rollie Adams. After touring the museum and the NCHEG collection Tallarico remarked, “This museum is the most amazing thing I’ve seen in my entire life!”
In the area for a performance of Video Games Live, Tallarico talked with the CHEGheads about issues ranging from the role of music and composers in the video-game industry to the challenges and opportunities surrounding the museum’s permanent electronic-games exhibit, projected to open in 2012. CHEGheads J.P. Dyson and Eric Wheeler continued the conversation with Tallaricio the following evening prior to his concert at Artpark, in Lewistown, New York.
For anyone unfamiliar with Video Games Live, this is the largest live orchestration of classic video-game music ever performed. Since 2002, Tallarico and fellow video-game music composer, Jack Wall, have been producing, performing, and updating their repertoire.
As the interactive segments of Video Games Live performances illustrate, Tallarico is not simply a composer of music, but a person truly passionate about musical play. Du
ring these interactive segments he randomly selects audience members to play classic video games on a large projection screen. As each lucky participant plays the game, the orchestra plays the accompanying music and sound effects, improvising each nuance of the music to match the live game play. The result is a truly unique multi-sensory experience.
The CHEGheads and our Strong colleagues were delighted that Tallarico took time out of his busy schedule to visit NCHEG. We look forward to the next opportunity to hear him in concert and host him here in Rochester.
Buckleitner’s Great Gift
Posted by Jon-Paul C. Dyson - 08/04/09 at 06:08 pmNCHEG’s collections have grown rapidly, and I wanted to take a moment to highlight one of the largest recent additions: more than 5,000 educational children’s computer games donated by Dr. Warren Buckleitner, Founder and Editor of Children’s Technology Review.
The games themselves range widely over different computer formats, from games on 5 1/4” floppies like Fisher-Price’s 1985 Alpha Build (front side runs on Apple, flip it over and it works on the IBM!) to 3 ½” disks like The Berenstain Bears Learning Essentials (released in 1992) to more recent and well-known CD-ROMs like Freddi Fish and Jump Start. These games have amused and educated millions of kids and are an important part of the history of electronic games.
Today, kids play most educational games on the Web, but during much of the 80s and 90s the stand-alone home computer was the dominant platform for such games. Console makers, often fearing that the term “educational game” would scare away kids, left that market to makers of games for home computers. Adults bought most of these games, and manufacturers sold products like Reader Rabbit and Carmen Sandiego by touting their educational value. For many kids, these games provided fun, learning, and a crucial introduction to computer gaming. Anyone remember playing Oregon Trail in school?
What’s fabulous about the Warren Buckleitner Collection is that few people collect these educational computer games. Name a console and you can find groups of hard-core collectors, but where are the people with shelves full of Math Blaster and Mavis Beacon? There aren’t many, and these types of games are in danger of disappearing. Luckily, because of Warren Buckleitner’s gift to NCHEG this important period in the history of electronic games will be preserved.
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