Title	:	Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture From Geek to Chic
Author	:	Brad King & John Borland
Length	:	273 pages
MSRP	:	$24.95
ISBN	:	0072228881
Release date	:	Aug 19 2003
Publisher	:	McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

A recent comic strip featured a computer maven bemoaning: "It really depresses me, what's happened to the Internet: all these people got on it." 

It's true that technology and cyberspace have grown from their original niches into a more mass appeal, due largely to the wide allure of electronic entertainment. The trends and trendsetters that advanced our medium into common acceptance are detailed in Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture From Geek to Chic, a hardcover by Brad King and John Borland. 

Dungeons and Dreamers has a simple, effective presentation: a small collection of black-and-white photos bisect the book, but the text is otherwise straight and uninterrupted across its ten chapters and three sections. The history reads easily and is organized neatly, with main characters quickly remembered and usually contained in their own story; should they reappear later, the authors often provide a reminding detail or two. 

Dungeons and Dreamers focuses heavily on three games — Ultima, Doom, and Quake — and their creators — Richard Garriott, John Romero, and John Carmack. Other industry players, such as Gary Gygax and Will Wright, make appearances, but without warranting the multiple chapters the main trio net. 

Likewise, the authors propose that a confluence of three influences in the Seventies produced modern gaming culture: the rise of Dungeons and Dragons; the popularity of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels; and the introduction of personal computers. Certainly these three factors bore heavily on Richard Garriott, otherwise known as Lord British, whose tale is told from the founding days of Akalabeth, to Ultima IX and the groundbreaking Ultima Online, concluding with Garriott's current works-in-progress. The social and networking aspects of Dungeons and Dragons, Quake, and computer networks is a repeated theme throughout. 

King and Borland's research for this book included personal interviews, experiences, and literary review. Yet they successfully resisted the temptation to cram in as much minutia as possible, instead focusing on the main characters and their stories. Occasionally, the authors exemplify the impact of these cultural evolutions with detailed accounts of regular gamers; their stories are often, but not always, impressive, informative, and relevant. The authors occasionally end these chapters by connecting this fragment of history to its larger, modern implications, eliminating the primary, historical figures as peers and reminding us that they are gods among men. 

Veterans of the industry will enjoy the details of this jaunt down memory lane, which includes many names they may not have heard in years, such as Ken and Roberta Williams (of King's Quest fame), The Sierra Network, Warren Spector, and Softdisk (John Romero's one-time employer). But as the narration progresses, Apple II users will find less relevance to their own history, as the book wends its way from gaming culture's origins on our favorite computer to its eventual emigration to Windows and the Internet. 

The occasional detour also presents itself, such as a comparison of the parallels between the moral panic over violent video games, and that of comic books in the Fifties.  And though the prologue points out this book is, as the title states, about computer, not video, game culture, there is a closing chapter about the present-day networking capabilities of consoles such as the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation 2. 

The index is not exhaustive — look up "Apple" and there's no entry, as the company itself is never mentioned. Not being gamers, nor were Jobs and Wozniak among those profiled. But the Apple II was the environment in which many of history's greatest game programmers came into their own, and their names and stories in this book will be familiar and enjoyable to many who shared that era and hardware with them.

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This article is copyright (c) 2004, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Juiced.GS, 01-Apr-04

Title	:	Lucky Wander Boy
Author	:	D. B. Weiss
Length	:	288 pages
MSRP	:	$13.00
ISBN	:	0452283949
Release date	:	Feb 25 2003
Publisher	:	Plume
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

We can play the games, study the chronologies, even hope for sequels. But the birth of electronic entertainment resides only as a memory that can never be solidified, any more than they can be recreated. So learns Adam Pennyman, the protagonist of Lucky Wander Boy, a novel by D.B. Weiss. 

Set in present times, Lucky Wander Boy is a tale of everyman Adam Pennyman; despite (or perhaps because of) a rather strong affinity for classic video games, Adam's character and history are mundane and identifiable to readers. A down-on-his-luck, untalented young man, Adams sets to consume his spare time with a catalog of the home and arcade games of his youth. He writes this encyclopedia as more than just a collection of facts, but of fresh dissertations and analyses on the meaning of said games. These essays are founded in Adam's own youth, and his reminiscences resonate so clearly with the first generation of gamers raised in the Eighties that one wonders to what degree the book is autobiographical. We find ourselves considering the futility of Frogger's quest, or the turning point that Double Dragon represented in the evolution of the arcade game. 

Later, these entries become more convoluted and self-inflated — like much of academia, trying to justify itself with pretentious metaphors and impossible importance. Finding commonalities between Mario and Jesus Christ is not beyond Weiss' main character. 

This change in focus is matched by a similar loss of coherency in the novel itself. Adam becomes obsessed with a (fictional) game from his boyhood, the titular Lucky Wander Boy, but stumbles across people and situations that put him closer to finding the game and its creator. 

The book is divided into three sections; as the story continues, it is more obvious that the book's style and atmosphere parallel the three stages of Lucky Wander Boy, becoming more abstract and deconstructing our main character. Adam discovers that, though the arcade games of his boyhood may be preserved, everything else that made his memories unique are gone, and that the games are just things — singular elements of those overall experiences. With the futility of his search for eternal youth comes irrational antics that Adam calmly rationalizes, though his readers may be filled with disbelief. Adult language and situations make this novel unsuitable for younger readers, who would wonder what the fuss over some pre-Nintendo games is anyway. 

Who is D.B. Weiss is to be writing a novel? The First Quarter was by Steven Kent, electronic entertainment correspondent for MSNBC; even John Sellers was a Donkey Kong world champ before writing Arcade Fever. Lucky Wander Boy is Weiss' first novel, and is perhaps all that separates him (if anything does) from the innumerable gamers to whom his book speaks. 

Lucky Wander Boy has a captivating opening and middle, with plenty of references only video gamers would get — such as an unexpectedly climatic moment in which, akin to a Terminator movie, Adam finds himself where everything fell apart years ago. Weiss' use of such obscure trivia is masterful, though the history is explained to those not privy to the facts. Ultimately, Weiss seems more concerned with taking a literary gambit of abstractness — like Adam playing his video game, we are left us wandering a strange environment, never really sure how the tale ends. That should not deter interested readers from witnessing the combined memories of Weiss and Pennyman, as much of it rings true.

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This article is copyright (c) 2003, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Tech News, 09-Sep-03

Title	:	Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution
Author	:	Dean Takahashi
Length	:	370 pages
MSRP	:	$24.95
ISBN	:	0761537082
Release date	:	Apr 23 2002
Publisher	:	Prima Publishing
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

With Microsoft having recently dropped the price of their Xbox video game console from $299 to $199, many gamers are likely to be opening their wallets to add a new system to their gaming arsenal. 

In Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution, author Dean Takahashi opens a different kind of box, revealing for the first time many of the details behind the creation of Microsoft's next-generation, 128-bit video game console. 

As the title suggest, Takahashi occasionally plays with hyperbole. The Xbox has not yet proven to be an entertainment revolution, suggesting that this book may be a bit premature in detailing Microsoft's success story in the console wars. But though the console's historical impact remains to be seen, the significance of Microsoft's entry into the gaming industry cannot be ignored. 

Takahashi's look at the video game industry does not reach farther back than most historical books perforce must; Microsoft is, after all, the newest comer to the console market. Opening the Xbox starts in the late Nineties, when the industry has already grown to gargantuan proportions. The industry was founded by companies such as Atari and Activision with much smaller teams, whereas by the time Microsoft entered the fray, their legions number in the thousands. It is difficult to detail every person who influenced the Xbox project, though Takahashi makes a valiant effort. Though this level of detail makes for useful historical reference, it occasionally doubles as heavy and confusing reading. 

Humanizing the cast reminds us that they are not only technological wizards, but people as well. Takahashi's approach to doing so is to introduce each individual with a brief background — who his parents were, where he grew up — and then follow up with the occasional narrative anecdote. Amid the description of a business meeting, the reader may suddenly be informed of the speaker's favorite color jellybean, or the location of his tattoo. These details are a tad too specific, and their abrupt placement, jarring. 

But the events in which these actors participate can be fascinating. Opening the Xbox is as much about Microsoft as it is the Xbox. A gaming company such as Nintendo does not have the same conspiracies and conflicts about a new console that a non-gaming company like Microsoft does. Gamers, unaware of the many internal struggles that brought the software giant into the game hardware industry, can now read how likely it was that the Xbox plan was squashed in favor of furthering WebTV development. More than the Xbox was threatened by Microsoft's designs; a previously-unrevealed bid to acquire Nintendo would've taken the GameCube off the shelves as well. 

Ultimately, Opening the Xbox reads more like a book aimed at businessmen and computer enthusiasts than at gamers. Nintendo and Atari are gaming companies, whereas it seems impossible to talk about Microsoft, or even the Xbox, without mentioning Windows. The Xbox has not been around long enough to win the hearts of gamers, though people curious about the machinations that allowed a software company to produce a game console, or readers looking for a focused look on a specific part of the industry, will find much to like in this book.

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This article is copyright (c) 2002, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Sentinel & Enterprise, 20-May-02

Title	:	Arcade Fever: The Fan's Guide to the Golden Age of Video Games
Author	:	John Sellers
Length	:	160 pages
MSRP	:	$18.95
ISBN	:	0762409371
Release date	:	August 2001
Publisher	:	Running Press
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

Who ever said nostalgia isn't what it used to be? 

Today's kids may not believe it, but there was an entire generation that grew up in video game arcades. Modern gaming centers don't hold much to support that truth, but for those who remember the draw of decades past, this book is for you. 

Arcade Fever: The Golden Age of Video Games is a chronology of the arcade era that lasted from 1978 to 1985. It is written and compiled by John Sellers, pop culture writer and Donkey Kong 1983 world champion. 

Unlike other historical records, Sellers' book is not a report on the industry itself; gamers can turn to other excellent chronicles such as Game Over, The First Quarter, or the recently revised Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Video Games for that information. 

No, Arcade Fever is a history not of the powers behind the medium, but of the medium itself: the games that we saw, touched, played, and grew up with. There are interviews with programmer Eugene Jarvis and Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, among others, but primarily this book brings you back to the arcades of twenty years ago. 

Fifty classic games comprise this walk down memory lane, beginning with Pong and Computer Space, the first coin-operated arcade games, and ending with Punch-Out!! and Gauntlet. Other highlighted titles include Pac-Man, Dragon's Lair, and TRON. Each entry includes Sellers' description of the game, as well as pictures of gameplay and cabinet art, when possible. Sidebars describe failed sequels and spin-offs, but there are no screen shots or other pictures to envision the turkeys Sellers describes. 

Arcade games did not exist in a vacuum, and neither does Sellers' presentation of each game. Each year of games highlights what was also hot that year in headlines, movies, TV, and sports. From the title to the writing, Sellers invokes the era he describes, incorporating aspects of popular culture such as quotes, brand names, and themes. He has a penchant to overuse some words, such as "titular" and "arguably", but I'm willing to chalk it up to the throes of arcade fever. 

Sellers also writes from the perspective of someone firmly entrenched in the present, who is nostalgic yet realistic. Fond memories do not cloud his opinion that, looking back, some of these games did not deserve accolades. He gives honor where due, but don't be shocked if the next comment slams a game, or even some of the people who played it. 

Arcade Fever is not wanting for material, but it devotes only four pages to home consoles and such memorable games as Adventure, Pitfall!, and Lode Runner. Though such games are not the focus of this book, I hope Sellers or someone like him will take it upon himself to create a similar volume for those memories created in dens and basements, not arcades. 

Arcade Fever is not a reference or resource, but more so than any other book, it is a look into the hearts and minds of a generation of gamers. It helps us to understand not only the roots of the gaming industry, but the people who ensured the pastime's place in American culture. It warrants a place on the bookshelf of any gamer, young or old.

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This article is copyright (c) 2001, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Sentinel & Enterprise, 17-Sep-01

Title	:	The First Quarter: A 25-year History of Video Games
Author	:	Steven L. Kent
Length	:	466 pages
MSRP	:	$21.95
ISBN	:	097047550
Release date	:	Nov 1 2000
Publisher	:	BWD Press
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

Video games have traveled a long and winding road, from being a fad more than two decades ago, to today's industry that rivals Hollywood. 

The First Quarter: A 25-year History of Video Games, by MSNBC writer Steven L. Kent, is the latest book to detail the history of electronic entertainment. This book is currently an exclusive to the online store Amazon.com. 

Despite the title, The First Quarter is more than a 25-year history. Video games have their history in pinball, which originated in 1927. Games as we know them today were invented in the Sixties, in the forms of Space War and Pong. 

The book's early history of modern video games is likely to have the most appeal. Today's generation of gamers scarcely, if at all, remember the market crash of the early Eighties, when Mattel, Coleco, and Atari waged war. Kent's history includes these events, and continues to as recently as the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 2, in March 2000. 

In researching this book, Kent conducted over 500 interviews, producing material that's not going to waste. About two paragraphs per page are block quotes from industry luminaries. These direct quotes show readers some of the industry's most memorable moments from the perspective of the people who created them, and provide interesting anecdotes. At the same time, Kent gets away with writing only two-thirds of the book. 

Unlike some video game books, the author doesn't inject much of his own voice into this history, instead presenting it more as factual data. Hardcore gamers will eat up these facts like Pac-Man gobbles power pills, but casual readers will sometimes get bogged down in so much data. 

The lack of voice contributes to Kent failing to present himself as very knowledgeable about video games, or at least passionate about them. In Joystick Nation, J.C. Herz discusses the various periods and issues of the gaming industry with so much attitude, there's never any wonder that there's a person behind all those words. She's a likely candidate to become a character in Tekken. In The First Quarter, Kent is hidden in an impartial chronology.. 

This distancing isn't helped by any number of errors; Kent seems to have forgone the editing process to get the book released for the holiday season. Typos and other mistakes can be found on average once every four pages. Some errors are as small as extraneous punctuations. More serious blunders confuse names, such as referring to the graphics technique of "mitt-mapping" (it's mip-mapping) or attributing a quote to "David Rosen, Founder of Nintendo" (Rosen founded Sega). 

The First Quarter falls just short of being an excellent resource by lacking an index. Video games are an industry where names, places, and dates can recur through the years, and one person can work for Sony, Sega, and Nintendo. A reference is essential to, yet missing from, a book that attempts to cover such a broad market. 

There are several books that focus their chronology on more specific aspects of the industry. David Sheff's Game Over: Press Start To Continue details Nintendo's rise to power. Its added detail gives a better sense of atmosphere and feel for the actors. Revolutionaries at Sony, by Reiji Asakura, is about the making of the Sony PlayStation, and especially Ken Kutaragi, vice president of Sony. 

The First Quarter is an excellent record of the many steps, small and large, video games have taken, especially in the last 25 years. There's so much information that every reader is bound to learn something new. Other video game books are more specific, detailed, and edited, but few encompass as much as Kent's book. 

Editor's Note: This book has been revised, expanded, and re-released under the name The Ultimate History of Video Games. Its ISBN is 0761536434. 

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This article is copyright (c) 2000, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Sentinel & Enterprise, 11-Dec-00