2017 Atari Review.pdf

Journal of Magazine Media, 2019

Research Policy, 2003

This paper examines the role of creative resources in the emergence of the Japanese video game industry. We argue that creative resources nurtured by popular cartoons and animation sector, combined with technological knowledge accumulated in the consumer electronics industry, facilitated the emergence of successful video game industry in Japan. First we trace the development of the industry from its origin to the rise of platform developers and software publishers. Then, knowledge and creative foundations that influenced the developmental trajectory of this industry are analyzed, with links to consumer electronics and in regards to cartoons and animation industry.

Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 2019

The article examines three tools used for hobbyist game development in 1990s Japan: the Dezaemon series of user-customizable shoot 'em up games, the RPG Tsukūru (RPG Maker) series of tools for creating Japanese-style role-playing games and the NScripter scripting engine for visual novels. In doing so, it aims to highlight the diversity, but also to bring out the commonalities, of game 'produs-age': producing video games by using dedicated software. The focus on a non-western historical context is an attempt to challenge assumptions about the locales and platforms of game produsage prevalent in English-language scholarship. The article concludes with a two-axis typology of game produsage, based on the degree of expressive freedom their functionality enables and the limitations they impose on users' distributing their games.

The following abstract is aimed to put into question how both the Japanese and Western gaming industries have differentiated themselves so much today, offering game systems and narratives that vary widely from each other. In the history of the medium, this differentiation was initially established because some semiotic and mechanic elements were identified to identifiable Japanese or American market tastes. Most of the time, the reasons that have been made to explain this difference within the medium have relied on either essential cultural differences or market determinism based on historical preferences. However, this paper argues that these differences aren't just formed due to specific cultural images or economic reasons, but mainly because of the formation of an identity discourse on the industry that has ghettoized specific formulas of player engagement to some cultural regions or supposedly minority groups. In the case of Japanese video games, we argue that several design conventions on the part of Japanese game designers have led to a paradigm that is unique to their cultural context. This paradigm can be distinguished from the one prevalent in the West because it has usually favored games that rely more heavily on the use of what we call “explicit narratives” to contextualize their rules, which have been solidified into several known “game genres” like the JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game), the “Visual Novel” and others. This paradigm was also highly influential in creating other genres that are ubiquitous in the medium today, specially during the era of the Japanese industrial dominance of the 80's and 90's. This model also encompass semiotic elements that are either textually related to other forms of Japanese media or have been used almost exclusively on Japanese video games. However, its presence has been reduced significantly today, to the point that it has become representative of games developed exclusively by the Japanese video game industry, even though it might be found outside that region. More so than that, it has been integrated within a bigger cultural discourse that identifies several forms of cultural artifacts as extensions of Japan into Western popular culture. Throughout this paper, we will explore the main elements that characterize this paradigm, including the concept of explicit narratives, and their manifestation on specific games. Finally, we will analyze its current influence on the development of the modern image of Japan, both in gamer consumer culture and the overall gaming industry today.

Social Science Japan Journal, 2019

New media & society, 2006

2005

The paper concerns the role of hardware in the evolution of the video game industry. The paper argues that it is necessary to understand the hardware side of the industry in several senses. Hardware has a key role with regard to innovation and industrial leadership. Fundamentally, the process can be understood as a function of Moore's law. Because of the constantly evolving technological frontier, platform migration has become necessary. Industrial success has become dependent upon the ability to avoid technological lock-ins. Moreover, different gaming platforms has had a key role in the process of market widening. Innovatory platforms has opened up previously untouched customer segments. It is argued that today's market situation seems to be ideal to the emergence of new innovatory industrial combinations.

2017

Since 1985, the American video game market and its consumers have acknowledged the significance of Nintendo on the broader development of the industry; however, the place of Nintendo in the North American history primarily focuses on the company’s most successful hardware in their catalogue. This study takes a multidisciplinary approach to reconceptualise the popularized history of Nintendo and challenge the positivistic narrative that privileges the most profitable innovations. While the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Wii are influential hardware creations worthy of their dedicated literature, the generalized history of interim consoles lacks necessary critical analysis; and formal literature on the company tends to discuss failed consoles in relation to their popularized predecessors or successors. Inspired by Deleuzoguattarian theory, Nintendo’s creative ideology of lateral thinking and repurposing of outdated technology is examined through a temporal synthesis of deterrit...

Games and Culture, 2023

This paper aims to create a shorthand for video game historyfrom video games' infancy to the current subscription model that is dominating gaming. In this essay, I will apply the practices of historical media scholarship that have helped parse out television history (e.g., TV I, TV II, TV III, and TV IV) and film history (e.g., Cinema 1, 2, and 3.0) to define the various shifts in video game history. Gaming I represents the arcade and home system boom up until the 1983 video game Crash, Gaming II describes the post-Crash console period, and finally, Gaming III materializes due to the arrival of modern video game subscriptions. Rather than constructing an exhaustive account of video game history, this essay means to generate more studies on what video game history can mean in the context of the established academic studies on visual media.