The novel I’m writing involves, in part, a group of friends who reunite after 25 years to restart their old game of Dungeons & Dragons. That game has been close to my heart since 1978 or so when I received my first boxed set as a gift. I’ll never forget the sense of wonder I felt rolling those exotic polyhedral dice and creating my first character. During my amazing week as a Mary Valentine and Andrew Cosman Research […]
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Switches and Screens: Researching Video Game Interface Design
In Will Wright’s game design documents for SimCity (1989), he wrote on his graph paper pad, “Interface?” Around the word, Wright drew a box, as if to highlight it. On the rest of the page, there are a random assortment of notes: “Fixed / Mobile Cursor,” “Navigate / Edit / Tool Select.” On the page, Wright also drew a series of arrows that show early design possibilities for the buttons used in SimCity to rotate buildings or move […]
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Dolls in Focus
In October 2017, I had the chance to be at The Strong National Museum of Play as a research fellow collecting data for my Dolls in Focus project aimed at revisiting and expanding the findings of my previous linguistic investigation on dolls’ language. Surprisingly, what I thought would primarily be an exploratory incursion into dolls’ universe from an academic perspective turned out to be a rather touching and personal experience that allowed me to revisit my own childhood memories.
For a […]
Examining 21st Century STEM–related Toys and their Impact on Girls
If someone asked you to name the types of toys girls played with, what would you say? Perhaps you would shout out “Barbies” or “baby dolls” or “pink cuddly toys,” right? Those types of toys have long been associated with girls, while trucks, cars, and blue toys made from hard plastic have been associated with boys. Meanwhile, the United States is struggling to understand why girls are not attracted to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
When asked to state […]
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Tournaments, Contests, and International Scoreboards: A Prehistory of Esports in the 1980s Arcade
I had the privilege of digging through the archives at The Strong museum during the last week before Labor Day 2017. The collection had a great deal to offer my research interests, which center on game studies generally and competitive gaming (esports) specifically. The research project I had proposed focused on investigating the prehistory of esports. Today, a class of competitive players earn a living by excelling in tournaments for games such as League of Legends and Super Smash Bros. Melee, […]
A Plethora of Games for a Splendid Little War: Parker Brothers Invades the Parlor
Recently, as I was conducting dissertation research at The Strong museum on the role of board games in the Victorian parlor, I stumbled across a group of Parker Brothers’ games on the Spanish-American War and the Filipino Insurrection. Reflecting ideas of growth, progress, and material gain, I realized that these games provide perfect illustrations of the ways in which game designers and manufacturers infused their products with the geopolitical conflicts of the day as they fostered new family rituals in […]
Playthings and Intellectual Property
I was a visiting Research Fellow at The Strong museum in July 2017. While at the museum, I researched the history of the toy industry, focusing on the ways in which the main trade journal, Playthings, represented the struggles of different companies to capitalize on the different opportunities the market offered to them. In doing so, I traced the links between intellectual property law and the making of the U.S. toy industry in the early 20th century.
The importance of Playthings magazine for legal […]
Teetotums
“Are you a child or a teetotum?” a creature asks Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass (1871). The bewildered Alice can’t think what to say in reply. Spun from one mad adventure to another, she might well resemble the iconic “teetotum,” or spinning top, that was used in 19th-century board games.
Today, most board games use dice to propel players around a game board. But in the 18th century, dice were seen as dangerous. Dice were used in gambling, after […]
Would Girls Like It? Why Atari’s Market Testing Failed to Produce a Female Audience
Video games have a common—and increasingly outdated—image of appealing primarily to males. This misperception is perhaps due to the tendency of the media to focus on the “triple A” market—high-budget games, produced by established game corporations, that highlight violence and sex to appeal to a straight, male audience. At least one company, however, was aware of the potential for a female market for video games in the 1980s. Atari Coin-Op Divisions Collection, 1972–1999, reveals how Atari conducted marketing research to […]