Download or read book Coin Operated Americans written by Carly A. Kocurek and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Video gaming: it’s a boy’s world, right? That’s what the industry wants us to think. Why and how we came to comply are what Carly A. Kocurek investigates in this provocative consideration of how an industry’s craving for respectability hooked up with cultural narratives about technology, masculinity, and youth at the video arcade. From the dawn of the golden age of video games with the launch of Atari’s Pong in 1972, through the industry-wide crash of 1983, to the recent nostalgia-bathed revival of the arcade, Coin-Operated Americans explores the development and implications of the “video gamer” as a cultural identity. This cultural-historical journey takes us to the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, for a close look at the origins of competitive gaming. It immerses us in video gaming’s first moral panic, generated by Exidy’s Death Race (1976), an unlicensed adaptation of the film Death Race 2000. And it ventures into the realm of video game films such as Tron and WarGames, in which gamers become brilliant, boyish heroes. Whether conducting a phenomenological tour of a classic arcade or evaluating attempts, then and now, to regulate or eradicate arcades and coin-op video games, Kocurek does more than document the rise and fall of a now-booming industry. Drawing on newspapers, interviews, oral history, films, and television, she examines the factors and incidents that contributed to the widespread view of video gaming as an enclave for young men and boys. A case study of this once emergent and now revived medium became the presumed enclave of boys and young men, Coin-Operated Americans is history that holds valuable lessons for contemporary culture as we struggle to address pervasive sexism in the domain of video games—and in the digital working world beyond.
Download or read book Nation on the Take written by Wendell Potter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American democracy has become coin operated. Special interest groups increasingly control every level of government. The necessity of raising huge sums of campaign cash has completely changed the character of politics and policy making, determining what elected representatives stand for and how their time is spent. The marriage of great wealth and intense political influence has rendered our country unable to address our most pressing problems, from runaway government spending to climate change to the wealth gap. It also defines our daily lives: from the cars we drive to the air we breathe to the debt we owe. In this powerful work of reportage, Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman, two vigilant watchdogs, expose legalized corruption and link it to the kitchen-table issues citizens face every day. Inciting our outrage, the authors then inspire us by introducing us to an army of reformers laying the groundwork for change, ready to be called into action. The battle plan for reform presented is practical, realistic, and concrete. No one--except some lobbyists and major political donors--likes business as usual, and this book aims to help forge a new army of reformers who are compelled by a patriotic duty to fight for a better democracy. An impassioned, infuriating, yet ultimately hopeful call to arms, Nation on the Take lays bare the reach of moneyed interests and charts a way forward, toward the recovery of America's original promise.
Download or read book Atari Age written by Michael Z. Newman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Automatic Pleasures written by Nic Costa and published by D'Aleman Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book has stood the test of time. Copies of the first edition have over the years regularly sold for many times the cover price. The full color book is once more in print. Since its original publication it has been cited in many academic papers and has since become the definitive work on the subject. It caused embarrassment to the huge American coin machine industry when it was first published in 1988- they were busy celebrating the centenary of the Juke Box in that year as an American invention whereas the book revealed that it was actually an earlier British invention. It awoke huge interest in Japan by giving them long sought answers as to the origins of the Pachinko machine (which at the time was consuming as much as a quarter of the gross domestic product in Japan). As a direct result of the book a new museum was established in the Japanese city of Kobe and for a short while the author became a national celebrity there. The book established many new facts and destroyed many of the myths that had arisen in the gaming industry during the 20th century. Originally an ancient Greek invention, the advent of the coin machine in the 19th century heralded a Victorian revolution which sought to establish a fully automated society. The visionaries of the past are the direct forbears of the all pervasive computer industries -without the gaming and coin machine industries it is doubtful as to whether today's computer dominated age would have ever happened. Most important of all, it is fun to read!
Download or read book Devotions written by Bruce Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These poems visit high schools, laundromats, motels, films, and dreams in order to measure the American hunger and thirst. They are interested in the things we profess to hold most dear as well as what's unspoken and unbidden. While we're receiving a call or while we're passing through an X-ray machine, the personal is intersected--sometimes violently, sometimes tenderly--with the hum and buzz of the culture. Whether in New York or Tuscaloosa, Seattle or Philadelphia, past or present, the culture carries the burden of race and 'someone's idea of beauty.'"--Book cover.
Download or read book Coin Blasters Arcade written by Karen Phillips and published by . This book was released on 2012-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If any single, universal truth binds the brotherhood of man, it is this: Kids love hitting targets. Or at least aiming for them. The video game industry owes its existence to this reality - but the virtual world pales in comparison to the satisfying real-life THONK! of a palpable hit. Celebrate that shoot-'em-up energy with Coin Blasters, a collection of competitive table-top target games in a book. The coin blasters themselves are sturdy plastic chutes we've painstakingly custom-molded to hold a coin steady and upright on its edge. With a simple flick of a finger, and a smidgen of practice, anyone can send that coin zooming with surprising speed and accuracy straight at the target. And what targets! The book is full of awesome paper engineering, resulting in a wide array of games. Take slap shots at a hockey goalie, shoot baskets at the Hot Shot Blaster Hoop, knock the teeth out of a monster's mouth, flick a nickel field foal, and rescue pennies from a well-protected, uber-fortified, piggy bank prison. Ten different games test your coin-blasting mastery and let you dominate the kitchen table. Now that's how you manage your money.
Download or read book They Create Worlds written by Alexander Smith and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They Create Worlds: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry, Vol. 1 is the first in a three-volume set that provides an in-depth analysis of the creation and evolution of the video game industry. Beginning with the advent of computers in the mid-20th century, Alexander Smith’s text comprehensively highlights and examines individuals, companies, and market forces that have shaped the development of the video game industry around the world. Volume one, places an emphasis on the emerging ideas, concepts, and games developed from the commencement of the budding video game art form in the 1950s and 1960s through the first commercial activity in the 1970s and early 1980s. They Create Worlds aims to build a new foundation upon which future scholars and the video game industry itself can chart new paths. Key Features: The most in-depth examination of the video game industry ever written, They Create Worlds charts the technological breakthroughs, design decisions, and market forces in the United States, Europe, and East Asia that birthed a $100 billion industry. The books derive their information from rare primary sources such as little-studied trade publications, personal papers collections, and oral history interviews with designers and executives, many of whom have never told their stories before. Spread over three volumes, They Create Worlds focuses on the creative designers, shrewd marketers, and innovative companies that have shaped video games from their earliest days as a novelty attraction to their current status as the most important entertainment medium of the 21st Century. The books examine the formation of the video game industry in a clear narrative style that will make them useful as teaching aids in classes on the history of game design and economics, but they are not being written specifically as instructional books and can be enjoyed by anyone with a passion for video game history.
Download or read book Vending Machines written by Kerry Segrave and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-09-24 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the 1880s are considered the beginning of the vending machine era, these devices have existed for a couple of thousand years. The earliest reference to a vending machine was made by Hero—a Greek mathematician, physicist and engineer who probably lived in Alexandria during the first century a.d.—who described and illustrated a coin-operated device to be used for vending sacrificial water in Egyptian temples. Completely automatic, the device was set in operation by the insertion of a five-drachma coin. This work traces the history of the vending machine from its inception to its current place in popular American culture, with the eight chapters covering significant eras. Successes and failures of the machines, economic factors influencing the popularity (or lack thereof) of vending machines, and the struggle of industry to become a dominant, large-scale method of retailing products are discussed. This text is richly illustrated and includes appendices on vending dollar value, vending sales by location type and vending statistics.
Download or read book America in Retreat written by Bret Stephens and published by Sentinel. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Americans are weary of acting as the world's policeman, especially in the face of our unending economic troubles at home. President Obama stands for cutting defense budgets, leaving Afghanistan, abandoning Iraq, appeasing Russia, and offering premature declarations of victory over al Qaeda. Meanwhile, some Republicans now also argue for a far smaller and less expensive American footprint abroad. Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens rejects this view. As he sees it, retreating from our global responsibilities will ultimately exact a devastating price to our security and prosperity. In the 1930s, it was the weakness and vacillation of the democracies that led to war and genocide. Today the regimes in Tehran, Damascus, Beijing, and Moscow continue to test America's will. Americans have often been tempted to turn our backs on a world that fails to live up to our idealism and doesn't easily bend. But succumbing to that temptation always leads to tragedy. The mantle of global leadership is a responsibility we must shoulder for the sake of our freedom, our prosperity, and our safety"--
Download or read book Coin Locker Babies written by Ryu Murakami and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A cyberpunk coming-of-age tale' Japan Times 'Encapsulates the fin de siècle cultural detonation of Japanese youth' Kirkus Two babies are left in a Tokyo station coin locker and survive against the odds, but their lives are forever tainted by this inauspicious start. Raised amidst the outcasts and misfits of Toxitown, they carve out vastly different paths: one as a bisexual rock star on a desperate search for his mother, the other as an athlete consumed by revenge against the woman who left him behind. When their twisted journeys start to intertwine, this savage and stunning story plunges headlong into a surrealistic whirl of violence. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe. Translated by Stephen Snyder Born in 1952 in Nagasaki prefecture, Ryu Murakami is the enfant terrible of contemporary Japanese literature. Awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1976 for his first book, he has gone on to explore with cinematic intensity the themes of violence and technology in contemporary Japanese society. Murakami is also a screenwriter and director; among his films are Tokyo Decadence, Auditionand Because of You. His novels Sixty-Nine, Popular Hits of the Showa Era and From the Fatherland, with Love are also available from Pushkin Press.
Download or read book American Coin written by Frank Romano and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2013-05 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Judge Robert Clive Jones enters the courtroom, plaintiff Frank Romano takes a deep breath. Finally, after all this time, his opportunity to seek justice has arrived. As Judge Jones bangs his gavel, a trial to determine the responsibility for the largest cheating scandal in Nevada Gaming History begins. Several years earlier, beneath the neon lights of Las Vegas, Romano became a partner in the American Coin Company. In the 1980s, as the company grew to be the third largest slot company in Nevada, Romano was content with his challenging and profitable work, despite regularly being at odds with his partners over the operating principles of the business. But in 1989, Romano's world changed forever when American Coin was seized and closed by the Gaming Control Board for rigging programs. In his gripping story of white collar crime, Frank shares the incredible details of his fall from grace and how he dedicated the rest of his life to recovering his monetary losses and professional reputation. American Coin provides an unforgettable glimpse behind closed doors of Nevada's biggest gaming scandal as one man embarks on a road to redemption lined with betrayal, deception, and murder.
Download or read book The Sega Arcade Revolution written by Ken Horowitz and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-06-22 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long before it took the home video game console market by storm, Sega was already an arcade powerhouse. Parlaying its dominance in coin-operated machines into the home video game boom of the 1980s, the Japan-based company soon expanded with branches in Europe and the U.S., and continues to lead the gaming industry in design and quality. Drawing on interviews with former developers and hundreds of documents, this history follows the rise of Sega, from its electromechanical machines of the mid-1960s to the acquisition of Gremlin Industries to its 2003 merger with Sammy Corporation. Sixty-two of Sega's most popular and groundbreaking games are explored.
Download or read book Pocket Guide to Coin Op Vending Machines written by John Carini and published by Schiffer Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features photos, descriptions, and prices for over 300 coin-op vending machines dating from the late 1890s to the 1960s. Common to rare machines include those that dispensed candy, gum, peanuts, tobacco, aspirin, breath pellets, matches, stamps, and cigars. Also includes hints for finding machines, restoration, servicing, common terminology, price guide.
Download or read book Coin Op Carnival 1 written by Nick Baldridge and published by . This book was released on 2019-03-22 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coin-Op Carnival, a 64-page print publication, is the only source for full-color, completely illustrated content about electro-mechanical coin-operated devices (pinball and arcade games prior to 1978). Each issue includes an interview with a game designer, in-depth game reviews, technical information, product reviews, and comics. The entire publication features new full-color illustrations on each page from university professor and comics artist, Ryan Claytor, with articles written by Ryan Claytor and Nick Baldridge.
Download or read book Atari Design written by Raiford Guins and published by Bloomsbury Visual Arts. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from deep archival research and extensive interviews, Atari Design is a rich, historical study of how Atari's industrial and graphic designers contributed to the development of the video game machine. Innovative game design played a key role in the growth of Atari – from Pong to Asteroids and beyond – but fun, challenging and exciting game play was not unique to the famous Silicon Valley company. What set it apart from its competitors was innovation in the coin-op machine's cabinet. Atari did not just make games, it designed products for environments. With “tasteful packaging”, Atari exceeded traditional locations like bars, amusement parks and arcades, developing the look and feel of their game cabinets for new locations such as fast food restaurants, department stores, country clubs, university unions, and airports, making game-play a ubiquitous social and cultural experience. By actively shaping the interaction between user and machine, overcoming styling limitations and generating a distinct corporate identity, Atari designed products that impacted the everyday visual and material culture of the late 20th century. Design was never an afterthought at Atari.
Download or read book American Freak Show written by Willie Geist and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2011-08-02 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is not the first book written about quantum mechanics, but it just might be the last. The theory presented inside these pages is so revolutionary that it has stunned the scientific community into reconsidering centuries of thought about the behavior of energy and matter. Prepare to have your mind blown. Sorry, that's the introduction to Willie Geist's next book--the culmination of his life's work. Look for it next spring, just in time for Mother's Day. This book is about his other passion: freaks. When he's not in the lab, Geist spends his time on MSNBC's Morning Joe sifting through the wreckage of American politics and popular culture. These days, that's a big job. With an Alaska hockey mom turning, almost overnight, into a national icon and threatening to move from Wasilla to the White House, with the world's most famous athlete now associated less with the Masters and more with the strippers, and with reality TV working around the clock to ensure the constitutional right of every man, woman, and child to fifteen minutes of fame, Geist's business is thriving. In his hilarious first book, American Freak Show, Geist takes the smart, biting observation loved by his television audience to new satirical extremes. The real-life characters who now haunt our daily lives are cast as stars in completely made-up scenes that, frankly, are not all that far from reality. Geist treats us to the first look at President Sarah Palin's unconventional inaugural address, performed live on WWE's Monday Night Raw after her renegade victory in the 2012 election. We go inside the ballroom for a Dean Martin-style welcome roast of Bernie Madoff upon his arrival in Hell, with Pol Pot serving as sidesplitting roastmaster. Geist provides us with never-before-seen FBI wiretap transcripts of the more mundane, but equally profane, telephone conversations of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. And George W. Bush's batting-cage-and-waterslide-themed plans for a presidential library are laid out publicly for the first time. From Obama to Oprah, Afghanistan to Lohan, and Snooki to the Salahis, Willie Geist spares no one as our host of this wild American Freak Show. You'll laugh out loud while weeping for the future of America.
Download or read book Gaming at the Edge written by Adrienne Shaw and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Video games have long been seen as the exclusive territory of young, heterosexual white males. In a media landscape dominated by such gamers, players who do not fit this mold, including women, people of color, and LGBT people, are often brutalized in forums and in public channels in online play. Discussion of representation of such groups in games has frequently been limited and cursory. In contrast, Gaming at the Edge builds on feminist, queer, and postcolonial theories of identity and draws on qualitative audience research methods to make sense of how representation comes to matter. In Gaming at the Edge, Adrienne Shaw argues that video game players experience race, gender, and sexuality concurrently. She asks: How do players identify with characters? How do they separate identification and interactivity? What is the role of fantasy in representation? What is the importance of understanding market logic? In addressing these questions Shaw reveals how representation comes to matter to participants and offers a perceptive consideration of the high stakes in politics of representation debates. Putting forth a framework for talking about representation, difference, and diversity in an era in which user-generated content, individualized media consumption, and the blurring of producer/consumer roles has lessened the utility of traditional models of media representation analysis, Shaw finds new insight on the edge of media consumption with the invisible, marginalized gamers who are surprising in both their numbers and their influence in mainstream gamer culture.
