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I was born and raised in a small rural town in Western New York. I lived near my mother’s childhood home where I enjoyed many happy hours in the company of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our families would often gather to play cards, bake, do laundry, or celebrate special occasions. I loved to sit quietly and listen to the grown-ups tell stories of times both present and past. The stories I recall don’t feature faraway places or extraordinary […]

Continue Reading about Room for Recollection: The Miniature World of Alice Steele Published on:
February 26, 2013

Before I came to The Strong, I taught writing and literature courses at the Rochester Institute of Technology and elsewhere, which fits right in with writing electronic games blogs. As video games occupy more and more of our playtime, it is not surprising that some educators are finding opportunities to use gaming to teach writing and critical reading skills. Here are three examples I find particularly interesting:
1. BiblioBouts
With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Studies, researchers at the […]

Continue Reading about Video Games in the Humanities Classroom Published on:
February 23, 2013

Cinderella has a long history of influencing popular culture and playthings. You might even say that she’s left a big footprint. The popular princess and her glass slipper came to my attention recently as I read an article about the upcoming Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Cinderella. The article focused on the creation of glass slippers—actually polyvinyl-chloride pumps bedecked with 10,000 Swarovski crystals—for the show. Stuart Weitzman, the shoemaker responsible for Cinderella’s footwear, said, “Who is the first […]

Continue Reading about Glass Slippers Galore Published on:
February 19, 2013

On a recent trip to France, I saw the beautiful Romanesque basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse, a stop on the medieval pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Martin Sheen and Emilio Estavez celebrated and updated this journey in their movie The Way, and the thought struck me: if a modern video game pilgrim traveled to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) at The Strong, what museums might he visit along the way?

Continue Reading about Video Game Museum Tour Published on:
February 15, 2013

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. […]

Continue Reading about Game for a Party Published on:
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 […]

Continue Reading about Four Horsemen: 3DO’s Apocalypse That Never Was Published on:
January 31, 2013