Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution [Paperback]

Steven Poole (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2004

The Edge calls Trigger Happy a "seminal piece of work." For the first time ever, an aficionado with a knowledge of art, culture, and a real love of gaming takes a critical look at the future of our videogames, and compares their aesthetic and economic impact on society to that of film. Thirty years after the invention of the simplest of games, more videogames are played by adults than children. This revolutionary book is the first-ever academically worthy and deeply engaging critique of one of today's most popular forms of play: videogames are on track to supersede movies as the most innovative form of entertainment in the new century.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Steven Poole's substantial examination of the world inside your console combines an exhaustive history of the games industry with a subtle look at what makes certain kinds of games more engaging than others. For example, what works in which genres--the RPG (role-playing game) versus the god game--and the relationship of video games to other forms of media.

A writer and composer, Poole makes the case that video games--like films and popular music--deserve serious critical treatment: "The inner life of video games--how they work--is bound up with the inner life of the player. And the player's response to a well-designed video game is in part the same sort of response he or she has to a film, or to a painting: it is an aesthetic one." Trigger Happy is packed with references not just to games and game history but also to writers and theorists who may never have played a video game in their lives, from Adorno and Benjamin to Plato. At times this approach verges on the pedantic, dwelling at length on points that will seem obvious to serious gamers ("We don't want absolutely real situations in video games. We can get that at home"; "The fighting game, like fighting itself, will always be popular"). Nonetheless, Poole's book may be favored bedside reading for both the keen gamer and the armchair philosopher looking to understand this cultural phenomenon. --Liz Bailey, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Steven Poole is a journalist and writer who has contributed articles to the Guardian, the Independent, and the Times Literary Supplement. He has also worked as a composer for television and short films.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559705981
• ISBN-13: 978-1559705981
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #954,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't go far enough, July 22, 2002

By 

Peter Tupper (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trigger Happy : Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution (Hardcover)

An intelligent, broad ranging discussion of videogames. Poole is right to regard videogames as a medium, and one that needs to be evaluated on its own terms instead of compared with books or movies. He brings in an intriguing array of references on art, semiotics, literary theory and other topics to the discussion, and his writing is accessible and smooth.

The flaw in this book is focussing too narrowly on twitch games, mostly the combat/exploration games like Tomb Raider or Metal Gear Solid. Poole can't be bothered with god-games like Populous or Sim-City or pure exploration-puzzle games like Myst, and says as much. He misses out on a huge realm of other styles of game and playing experience. This is a shame, because Poole looks like he has the intellectual chops to write a comprehensive book on this subject.

Pool is on to something in the last chapter, when he theorizes that the next frontier is making the player feel responsible for his decisions in the game world. You might feel bad when Aeris buys it in Final Fantasy VII, but it was in a cut scene so you don't feel responsible because it was beyond your control.

For the reasons Poole discusses earlier, this is hard to do in an adventure-style game. If a character dies in a cut scene, it isn't your fault. If she dies in gameplay, you just keep playing it through until she lives. (Kirk didn't accept the no-win situation; why should you?)

However, this is where his distaste for god-games trips him up. Players of Civilization or other management games don't have easy replay buttons. Anybody whose sim-city burns because they under-funded the fire department knows all about actions and consequences. We care about a place if we build it. We don't care about a place if we just wander around shooting things in it.

Also, instilling responsibility in games may be a dead end. Arguably, the whole point of play is to avoid responsibility. Play is a separate realm in which success or failure don't matter in the rest of world. Creating consequences for our actions in a game world would make it too much like work.

This may be why some people find on-line games so addictive. They become like work, instead of play, because there are consequences if you don't play hard enough. You can let down the other players, and your enemies can attack what you have created.

Poole doesn't write about on-line multi-player games, because they barely existed when he wrote this, only a couple of years ago. I think he could write another intriguing book on the subject, if he would just take his eyes off Lara Croft and take a walk through Riven.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant aesthetic History of video games, January 2, 2001

By 

Kurt Squire - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trigger Happy : Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution (Hardcover)

With Trigger Happy, Steven Poole offers a critical look at the aesthetic history of games. To the informed reader of gaming literature, this subject matter may sound vaguely familiar: Another journalist - game aficionado writes a personal history of games based on personal reflections, email interviews with industry insiders, and the obligatory field trip to E3. Great. , I already read JC Herz's Joystick Nation four years ago; why should I read this? I'll have to admit that after reading Jon Katz' latest "up up down down", piece which discusses Trigger Happy, I was prepared to be disappointed. If all that Katz took away from the book was that games are an important part of contemporary culture, the electronic entertainment industry is as big as the movie industry, and Lara Croft has a hot body, then reading Trigger Happy would be a waste of time.

Thankfully, Trigger Happy is more than an update of Joystick Nation; in fact, Trigger Happy is the most thorough deconstruction of the games themselves written to date while retaining the same witty, irreverent style that made Joystick Nation so engaging. Poole offers a fresh, entertaining, and insightful look at games that is accessible to novices and seasoned gamers alike. At its heartTrigger Happy is an aesthetic history of games, tracing their development from primitive black and white 2 player games into complex popular-art accomplishments. Poole, a journalist, writer, and composer brings a keen eye (and ear), to his subject matter, interweaving semiotics, personal history, critical analysis, and a love for games into a creative, cleverly written aesthetic discussion of games. In doing so, he raises the ante for game designers, critics and aficionados looking to examine games as an art-form.

Trigger Happy succeeds because Poole examines games in much greater depth than any of his contemporaries. He looks at how games are made. He examines game players -- from a cross cultural perspective, and then he looks at the games themselves, applying literary, philosophical, and semiotic analysis to games. The book is thorough and well thought out -- enough that it could be used in an academic context. Fortunately, Poole doesn't lose the reader in technical jargon or philosophical babble; he keeps the focus squarely on the games, and what makes games fun.

More than any other published book to date, Trigger Happy lays the foundation for a field of electronic gaming criticism. Steven Poole gives great insight into what makes a great game, and offers the reader a useful set of conceptual tools to understand games. Although, Poole's goal is not really to provide an academic treatise, Trigger Happy is so articulate, so original, that it succeeds as an academic work as well as entertainment. Of course, there are minor details that the reader may quibble with - but engaging in a dialogue with Poole about games is half the fun of reading this book. If you're looking for thoughtful look at the games that entertain us...that make us Trigger Happy, you can't miss this book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars art? sport? other?, March 14, 2001

By 

A. Pai - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trigger Happy : Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution (Hardcover)

"If architecture is frozen music, then videogames are liquid architecture."

Poole gives us a series of essays that take a serious look at videogames. What kind of artform are they? How have they drawn influence from, and influenced, more traditional artforms like movies and novels? Not all of Poole's insights are revolutionary, but he's obviously a bright guy who's not afraid to drag out the heavy hitters (Adorno, Wittgenstein) when he needs to. Nevertheless "Trigger Happy" has a light touch; it's easy to read and quite entertaining. Poole isn't just an armchair theorist; the games that he holds in high regard (e.g. Metal Gear Solid, Wipeout XL, Space Invaders) are all standouts, and he writes about them with obvious affection.

I particularly enjoyed the section where Poole contemplates future possibilities for gaming. He points out that, just as advancements in art through the ages were initially characterized by increasingly 'realistic' representation techniques (e.g. vanishing horizon, perspective), so are videogame graphics advancements characterized by increased realism. But while art branched off into abstraction, impressionism, etc., videogames have so far avoided similar exploration. To put it in a nutshell-- why aren't there more games that let you move around in an MC Escher type space?

The hilarious analysis of laser weapon verisimilitude in videogames is priceless.