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The recent galling decision to drop wrestling from the Olympics has me steamed, but it has me musing about the virtues of the hand-to-hand contest, too. Wrestling and the Olympics go way back—back to the beginning, in fact. The amphora pictured here depicts a wrestling match between Peleus, the Greek hero and father to Achilles, and Atalanta, the only woman to have signed on as crew with the Argonauts (whose famous quest for the Golden Fleece you may have heard […]

Continue Reading about Wrestling Rubbed Out? Now They’ve Done It! Published on:
February 15, 2013

Other than Santa’s workshop at the North Pole, where do games come from? Often they start out as prototypes, initial versions that allow game inventors to test their concepts and designs. Like the first draft of a novel or the rough cut of a movie, these prototype games help illustrate the revisions and refinements that lead to a finished product, one that might go on to become a holiday season sales sensation or your family’s favorite game. But prototypes aren’t […]

Continue Reading about The Pre-Game Show: It Starts with a Prototype Published on:
February 12, 2013

A few years ago, I asked my students in an American cultural history course to identify logos and slogans from their lifetime. Not surprisingly, since advertising bombards us through print, radio, television, and the Internet, the students did this easily (try this Logo Quiz game for yourself). After this exercise, the class discussed how advertising illustrates changes in social and cultural history. Take for example, the changes in television commercials from three different generations of video game consoles—the Magnavox Odyssey, […]

Continue Reading about Selling Electronic Play in Video Game Television Commercials Published on:
February 6, 2013

Few things beat a good party game for putting people at ease—be they best friends or acquaintances at best. I attended a baby shower whose host displayed a platter of adorable infant-related items and instructed us to commit them to memory. After Jackie and her tray left the room, her mother-in-law distributed pencils and paper. However, instead of asking us to list the contents of the tray—which I’d been repeating under my breath—she asked us, “What was Jackie wearing?” Oops. […]

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February 5, 2013

“And so, the Four Horsemen were unleashed as foretold, and their names are Famine, Pestilence, War and Death. I am the line that separates life from death, war from peace and good from evil. I am known as Abaddon. And though I walk through the shadow of death I shall fear no evil…because evil fears me.”
~ Original game tagline from 3DO
The 3DO Company began developing their first M-rated video game title, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in 2002. The game’s […]

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January 31, 2013

The presents have been unwrapped, the new year celebrated, and the holiday treats devoured. Now what? For many folks, the post-holiday season appears bleak, with only frigid weather and sunless days stretching out over the weeks ahead. But for some, the fun has only begun. If you’re an avid skier, snowboarder, or snowmobiler, you’ve just started enjoying the season and delighting in fresh white blankets of snow. Perhaps you’ve even pulled out your snowshoes or the old Sno Bronco.

As a […]

Continue Reading about The Weather May Be Frightful, But Snow Play Is Delightful! Published on:
January 29, 2013

I have wanderlust. In college, I found like-minded companions in Dean and Sal from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. In one passage, Sal recognized why he felt compelled to travel and explained that he had “no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, rolling under the stars.” I still relate to his sentiments; however, my lifestyle does not always permit sporadic adventures. Now when I feel the need […]

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January 24, 2013

In the big picture of play, all toys have a purpose: they teach physical and mental skills, develop young imaginations, and encourage kids to think in new ways. However one category of toys has puzzled me for years: housekeeping toys. The term seems like an oxymoron. I love a well-cooked meal, nicely laundered and pressed clothes, and a thoroughly cleaned house as much as the next neatnik, but housekeeping as play? Only the young could think so—because they are too […]

Continue Reading about (House)Working at Play Published on:
January 22, 2013

Have you ever yearned for a particular gift only to receive an inferior substitute? That I imagine is what happened under a number of Christmas trees in the mid-1970s, when Marx Toys marketed its T.V. Tennis, an electromechanical version of home video game systems. ICHEG recently acquired a working copy of T.V. Tennis.
Let’s set the stage. In 1972, Magnavox introduced Odyssey, a home gaming system featuring, among other activities, a tennis game. The game consisted of two player-controlled paddles that […]

Continue Reading about But Mom, I Wanted PONG! Published on:
January 18, 2013