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Michael Z. Newman

Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America (The MIT Press) Hardcover – February 10, 2017

by Michael Z. Newman (Author)

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The cultural contradictions of early video games: a medium for family fun (but mainly for middle-class boys), an improvement over pinball and television (but possibly harmful)

Beginning with the release of the Magnavox Odyssey and Pong in 1972, video games, whether played in arcades and taverns or in family rec rooms, became part of popular culture, like television. In fact, video games were sometimes seen as an improvement on television because they spurred participation rather than passivity. These “space-age pinball machines” gave coin-operated games a high-tech and more respectable profile. In Atari Age, Michael Newman charts the emergence of video games in America from ball-and-paddle games to hits like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, describing their relationship to other amusements and technologies and showing how they came to be identified with the middle class, youth, and masculinity.

Newman shows that the “new media” of video games were understood in varied, even contradictory ways. They were family fun (but mainly for boys), better than television (but possibly harmful), and educational (but a waste of computer time). Drawing on a range of sources―including the games and their packaging; coverage in the popular, trade, and fan press; social science research of the time; advertising and store catalogs; and representations in movies and television―Newman describes the series of cultural contradictions through which the identity of the emerging medium worked itself out. Would video games embody middle-class respectability or suffer from the arcade's unsavory reputation? Would they foster family togetherness or allow boys to escape from domesticity? Would they make the new home computer a tool for education or just a glorified toy? Then, as now, many worried about the impact of video games on players, while others celebrated video games for familiarizing kids with technology essential for the information age.

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Atari Age asks its readers to put aside preconceived notions about the history of video games in North America. It takes us through a fascinating, thorough, and compelling sociocultural history of the early days of video games in the 1970s and early 1980s. Newman weaves together original marketing and advertising materials about games, discourses about arcades, and the evolution of the home as a site for leisure, producing a must-read account of how our ideas about what video games are, who plays them and where, were first developed and framed.―Mia Consalvo, Canada Research Chair in Game Studies and Design, Concordia University; author of From Atari to Zelda: Japan's Videogames in Global Contexts

About the Author

Michael Z. Newman is Professor in the Department of Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; 1st edition (February 10, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262035715
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262035712
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.94 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,933,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,710 in History of Engineering & Technology
- #3,877 in History of Technology
- #11,481 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences

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Michael Z. Newman

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Michael Z. Newman is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He grew up in Toronto and has degrees from McGill University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches and writes about media and popular culture.

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Paulo Sergio S. Silva

Interesting reading

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 22, 2017

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The author makes a thorough and detailed analysis of the social and cultural impact of video games on the American society during the decade that comprised its emergence as a mass consumer product. Based on an extensive research, the book brings many (and frequently opposite) perspectives and historical facts helping the reader in making sense of what made video games a cultural breakthrough as a new media and a new form of leisure. The text may sometimes sound a bit repetitive and too much ‘academic’, but it's just what you may expect given the author's background. Don't expect for a historical narrative on the industry on itself neither on the consoles and games of the period covered in the book (1970's and early 1980's). Rather, read it with an open mind wanting to learn about new perspectives of the video games phenomenon and how they have influenced and how they have been influenced back by the values of the American society.

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Lee Chisholm

Good book but NOT about the history of video games!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 13, 2017

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Good book but be warned this is NOT a book about the history of video games (author makes this very clear during the introduction). Content is much more oriented towards the sociological analysis of video games and how they were viewed by people back in the day. If you are interested in a cultural analysis of video games and their impact on society you may find this interesting. Sometimes the author goes on for multiple pages without really referencing video games at all, just to give you an example of how this book will read.

I actually bought this thinking it was a history book and was sadly mistaken. Still enjoyed the read but it was not the book I was looking for.

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Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America (The MIT Press) Hardcover – February 10, 2017

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