Atari Age examines the impact early video games had on culture and their effects both positive and negative on society. Michael Newman chronicles a history of early games and how their nature and focus created an acceptance of computer technology by society at large. The tension between the positive and negative aspects of the new medium are well illustrated by showing how arcades evolved from dark unsavory places to clean welcoming places that women might frequent. This is a fascinating and well-researched book that is sure to be important in the history of video games. -- Al Alcorn, developer of Pong A fascinating history of the social life of video games, from their emergence as arcade amusements and domestic novelties to their convergence with the TV set and PC to their wide-ranging implications for family life, gender, childhood, and the organization of domestic space. A valuable contribution to the study of new media that is also fun to read! -- Lynn Spigel, Professor, Northwestern University; author of Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America 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
Michael Z. Newman is Professor in the Department of Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
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