Video Games - Sega and the history of video games

• unflattering representation of video game players
• people who play video games are sad?
• this is a stereotypical, ideological representation
• there is often a negative stereotype associated with video game players

Video game production, distribution and circulation

• like all industries, the videogame industry is a specialised industry
• in order to write about the videogame industry and its peculiarities, you will need to know something of the history of videogames

Technological innovations

• the first computers were huge and took up a lot of space
• the only people with access were universities and their lectures
• moonlight time - the computer was expensive to use so people would go early mornings
• computer space (1971) - first arcade machines which allowed people to put money in and play games
• advertised by the hegemonically attractive woman - Liesbet Van Zoonen
• Pong (home version, 1974)
• one of the first video game consoles
• manufactured by Atari
• more accessible, but very expensive
• the Japanese arcade boom - Space Invaders (1978)
• 
  in Japan, arcade machines were called invader halls
• people played video games to get high scores
• arcades were social spaces to have fun
• the home video game industry crashed in the 1980s
• Japanese RPG's (role play games) became very popular
• leading in the market as the quality was much better
• the Japanese console boom - at home video game playing
• Street Fighter II (1991)
• popularised fighting and also competitive games
• PlayStation came out in 2004

The relationship between major and indie producers

• indie = independent

Controversies

• the 1980s videogame crash - Custer's Revenge
• in this unlicensed Atari 2600 game, a naked cowboy named Custer must travel across a desert avoiding various obstacles in order to have sex with a naked native American woman named Revenge, who is tied to a post