Tag : history

Special Issue of Reconstruction on “The Undead Arcade”

My colleague Samuel Tobin and I are co-editing a special issue of Reconstruction all about the video game arcade. I’ve copied the full CFP down below. Please pass along and consider submitting.… Read the rest

History of Games International Conference

Since the conference site is now online, I can start talking about how excited I am about the 1st History of Games International Conference: Working With, Building, and Telling History which is taking place this June in Montreal.… Read the rest

It’s only a Purple Moon

Games from Purple Moon are my current eBay obsession. I’ve been very interested in “games for girls” lately — hence the Barbie game I featured a few posts back. I missed Purple Moon the first time around by a few years, as I was well into high school by the time the first games launched, and so I was too busy reading my dad’s old Beat generation paperbacks and cultivating obscure music knowledge to be bothered.… Read the rest

Postcards from the Drake Hotel: SCMS 2013

Because SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) conference was right here in town this year, I was able to stop by a few panels. I’ve actually never attended SCMS before, and so it was nice to be able to check out the conference in a low-pressure kind of way.… Read the rest

Alan Alda for Atari

I recently stumbled across a series of Atari advertisements featuring actor Alan Alda. I have a soft spot for Alan Alda, partially because of his feminist politics, and partially because of a deep love for the series MASH — which Alda agreed to star in only after gaining assurance that surgery scenes would feature in every episode.… Read the rest

Pole Position to Family Game Night: Fun for the Whole Family

This television spot for Atari’s Pole Position (1982, Namco) has one of my favorite exchanges of all time. As the camera physically invades the space of the family car, focusing on the bespectacled, bow-tied father driving the vehicle, an aggressive voice shouts at him:

Hey!