Overview
Video gaming: it's a boy's world, right? That's what the industry wants us to think. Why and how we came to comply are what Carly A. Kocurek investigates in this provocative consideration of how an industry's craving for respectability hooked up with cultural narratives about technology, masculinity, and youth at the video arcade.From the dawn of the golden age of video games with the launch of Atari's ""Pong"" in 1972, through the industry-wide crash of 1983, to the recent nostalgia-bathed revival of the arcade, ""Coin-Operated Americans"" explores the development and implications of the ""video gamer"" as a cultural identity. This cultural-historical journey takes us to the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, for a close look at the origins of competitive gaming. It immerses us in video gaming's first moral panic, generated by Exidy's"" Death Race"" (1976), an unlicensed adaptation of the film ""Death Race 2000."" And it ventures into the realm of video game films such as ""Tron"" and ""WarGames,"" in which gamers become brilliant, boyish heroes.Whether conducting a phenomenological tour of a classic arcade or evaluating attempts, then and now, to regulate or eradicate arcades and coin-op video games, Kocurek does more than document the rise and fall of a now-booming industry. Drawing on newspapers, interviews, oral history, films, and television, she examines the factors and incidents that contributed to the widespread view of video gaming as an enclave for young men and boys.A case study of this once emergent and now revived medium became the presumed enclave of boys and young men, ""Coin-Operated Americans"" is history that holds valuable lessons for contemporary culture as we struggle to address pervasive sexism in the domain of video games--and in the digital working world beyond.
Full Product Details
Author: Carly A. Kocurek
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Imprint: University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 3.80cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.431kg
ISBN: 9780816691821
ISBN 10: 0816691827
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 30 September 2015
Audience:
General/trade
,
Professional and scholarly
,
General
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.
Reviews
An excellent study of the early history of the video game industry and how it came to define the gamer as male. --Library Journal The great contribution of Kocurek's Coin-Operated Americans is its attempt to historicize a relationship that often appears natural to cultural gatekeepers and other onlookers, not to mention reactionary gamers themselves. --Public Books This detailed study provides a lucid, compelling narrative that will interest a very diverse audience. --CHOICE Coin-Operated Americans is an invaluable contribution for those interested in the intersection among media, technology, and critical questions surrounding children and youth. --Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth Carly A. Kocurek provides a fascinating cultural history of arcade gaming and, in doing so, offers keen insight into our ongoing conversations around gender and gaming. This is a must read for those interested not only in game studies but in the evolution of American boyhood. --T.L. Taylor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology An excellent study of the early history of the video game industry and how it came to define the gamer as male. Library Journal The great contribution of Kocurek s Coin-Operated Americans is its attempt to historicize a relationship that often appears natural to cultural gatekeepers and other onlookers, not to mention reactionary gamers themselves. Public Books This detailed study provides a lucid, compelling narrative that will interest a very diverse audience. CHOICE Carly A. Kocurek provides a fascinating cultural history of arcade gaming and, in doing so, offers keen insight into our ongoing conversations around gender and gaming. This is a must read for those interested not only in game studies but in the evolution of American boyhood. T.L. Taylor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
An excellent study of the early history of the video game industry and how it came to define the gamer as male. Library Journal The great contribution of Kocurek s Coin-Operated Americans is its attempt to historicize a relationship that often appears natural to cultural gatekeepers and other onlookers, not to mention reactionary gamers themselves. Public Books This detailed study provides a lucid, compelling narrative that will interest a very diverse audience. CHOICE
Carly A. Kocurek provides a fascinating cultural history of arcade gaming and, in doing so, offers keen insight into our ongoing conversations around gender and gaming. This is a must read for those interested not only in game studies but in the evolution of American boyhood. T.L. Taylor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Author Information
Carly A. Kocurek is assistant professor of digital humanities and media studies and director of digital humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Her work has appeared in journals including Game Studies, Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, and Visual Studies and in the anthologies Before the Crashand Gaming Globally.
