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Videogame history is not just a history of one successful technology replacing the next. It is also a history of platforms and communities that never quite made it; that struggled to make their voices heard; that aggravated against the conventions of the day; and that never enjoyed the commercial success or recognition of their major counterparts. In
Minor Platforms in Videogame History, Benjamin Nicoll argues that 'minor' videogame histories are anything but insignificant. Through an analysis of transitional, decolonial, imaginary, residual, and minor videogame platforms, Nicoll highlights moments of difference and discontinuity in videogame history. From the domestication of vector graphics in the early years of videogame consoles to the 'cloning' of Japanese computer games in South Korea in the 1980s, this book explores case studies that challenge taken-for-granted approaches to videogames, platforms, and their histories.
List of contents
Acknowledgements, Introduction - Failed, forgotten, or overlooked? Methods for historicizing minor platforms 1. Ways of seeing game history: The Vectrex as a transitional platform 2. Articulations of videogame piracy: The Zemmix as a decolonial platform 3. Domesticating the arcade: The Neo Geo as an imaginary platform 4. A dialectic of obsolescence? The Sega Saturn as a residual platform 5. 'How history arrives': Twine as a minor platform Conclusion - 'Something new in the old, Notes, Bibliography, Index
About the author
Benjamin Nicoll is a Lecturer in Digital Media and Communication in the School of Communication and a member of the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.
