Gamer nation: video games and American culture

297 Pages·2019·1.982 MB·English

by  Wills, John

Gamer Nation
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GAMER NATION
Video Games and American Culture
JOHN WILLS
Johns Hopkins University Press BALTIMORE
© 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-2870-3 (paperback: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-2870-9 (paperback: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-2869-7 (electronic)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-2869-5 (electronic)
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. A New Realm of Play 1
1 Games and New Frontiers 21
2 Playing Cowboys and Indians in the Digital Wild West 58
3 Cold War Gaming 83
4 9/11 Code 110
5 Fighting the Virtual War on Terror 145
6 Grand Theft Los Angeles 161
7 Second Life, Second America 191
Conclusion. Converging Worlds 219
Notes 235
References 257
Index 277
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The process of researching and writing this book has involved ex-
ploring all kinds of American media and materials. Alongside more
traditional sources such as newspapers and historical archives, online
discussion groups, fansites, along with the extended play of video games
themselves, have all proved vital to this project. A number of game de-
signers gave their time to answer questions on specific video game titles.
I thank Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, Don Rawitsch, creator of The
Oregon Trail (1971), Jim Storer, programmer of Lunar Lander (1969),
Scott Harrison, the graphics artist for Tapper (1983), as well as Simon
Taylor, who worked on the title New York Blitz (1982), for all graciously
taking the time to reply to my questions. For materials on the historic Or-
egon Trail and George Armstrong Custer, I thank Marva Felchin, director
of Libraries and Archives at the Autry Museum of the American West in
Los Angeles, as well as staff at the Huntington Library in San Marino.
Chapter Two, exploring depictions of the “Wild West” in video games,
draws from my article “Pixel Cowboys and Silicon Goldmines,” pub-
lished in 2008 for the Pacific Historical Review. I thank editor Marc
Rodriguez for permission to use sections from the original article. The
British Academy, London, funded research linked with this project, and
gave me the opportunity to exhibit my work at the Academy’s first an-
nual Summer Showcase in June 2018, whereby, across three days, guests
chatted with me about the cultural impact of video games and also
played a range of vintage amusement machines, with a 1966 Williams
pinball machine and two Atari VCSs proving most popular. My dear
thanks to event organizers Johanna Empson and Marisa Smith and the
British Academy team.
At Johns Hopkins University Press, I thank my editor Robert J. Brug-
ger, who first showed interest in the project and was patient enough to
wait for it to come to fruition, along with Matt McAdam, for seeing the
project through, and editorial assistant William Krause. At the Univer-
vii
sity of Kent, I thank my good friend and visual scholar Tom Lawrence
for countless conversations about gaming (and some wild Pokémon hunt-
ing sessions across the summer of 2017), as well as his valuable input
into the manuscript. Colleague, American scholar, and fellow gamer
Nicholas Blower provided original insights into video game culture, es-
pecially the mysterious cults found in Grand Theft Auto V (2013), and
commented on individual chapters. My research assistant Hollie Bram-
well assisted with a range of tasks across 2017 and 2018, and both Nic
and Hollie helped out at the British Academy Showcase. Game Studies
scholar Esther Wright at Warwick University also took time out to read
the final draft of the manuscript.
The book draws on a number of research papers given at annual
conferences hosted by the Native Studies Research Network (NSRN),
British Association for American Studies (BAAS), and Historians of the
Twentieth Century United States (HOTCUS), along with symposiums
at Christ Church University, the University of Sussex and the University
of East Anglia. These events brought me into contact with some superb
Game Studies scholars, including Ewan Kirkland, Alan Meades, Chris
Pallant, Adam Chapman, and Emily Marlow.
My partner, Samantha Robinson, and my toddler son, Jude, coped
patiently with a project that seemed to morph between typing and gam-
ing all too fluidly.
This work is dedicated to my mother and late father, who introduced
me to video games. One of my first memories is playing a cowboy-themed
shooting title at an amusement arcade during a family trip in the late
1970s. Despite its significant cost, my parents bought me a Commodore
Vic 20, my first computer, back in 1982. Although I was meant to use
the machine for education, it soon became more of a plaything. I re-
member playing New York Blitz on the system, along with Ski (1983),
JetPac (1983), and android-invasion title Amok! (1981). I became friends
with Tim King and Chris Lewis at college around that time, and we
played a huge range of computer games at each other’s houses, from
space adventure titles Elite (1984) and Laser Squad (1988) to fighting
games The Way of the Exploding Fist (1985) and IK+ (1987). Those
early experiences led to an interest in gaming that endures today. Some
of my favorite memories over the past four decades involve playing com-
puter and video games with people. But it all began with a classic Wild
West scene and some pixel gunslingers.
viii   Acknowledgments
Gamer Nation