VIDEO GAMES & POPULAR CULTURE

The impact of game design and game technology on popular culture. Topics will include early history including the early hardware and software designers that emerged after World War II, the rise of the video game entrepreneurs and the resulting multi-billion dollar arcade industry, eight generations of home video game console inventors from the Magnavox Odyssey through the present day, the impact of the home computer on video games, the evolution of the handheld game console from early LCD games through the smart phone, online gaming from the first text-based games built by hobbyists through the current massively multi-player online role-playing games, and the validation of video games as an art form as evidenced by their addition to the collections of prominent institutions such as the Smithsonian and MoMA. For each historical era, the influence of video games on popular culture will be demonstrated through film, television, print, and music.