In Defense Of Joystick Nation
I remember picking up Joystick Nation at the oddly-named Little Professor book store in Green Bay late in 1997. I was so enthused at the thought that someone had written a book about video games then and now that I snatched it up and gladly paid the steep cover price on the spot.
Now, not quite three years later, I’ve come to realize that I’m probably one of five people who actually really, really dig this book. Listening to fellow game fans and collectors discuss Joystick Nation, I think it’s down to me, J.C. Herz, her editor and her parents. And sometimes I wonder about this. Has a small handful of negative reviews prevented everyone from enjoying something which is actually a good book? (Or am I living in my own bubble, isolated from all that is hip? After all, I thought Jar Jar Binks was pretty cool, so what do I know?)
Where I thank many classic gaming afficionados go wrong is in expecting a comprehensive history of the video game industry. They’re looking for release dates, tons of photos, behind-the-scenes dirt, and other such information. This is not Joystick Nation. What J.C. Herz’s book is is a broad sociological overview of how video game have changed the face of entertainment, and how we, the players, have responded in turn. It looks at such issues as video game violence, how games are marketed, and how the internet has come to challenge cartridges and CD-ROMs as the de facto vehicle for game software. There is also a comparison of how game development has changed - from the early days, when Eugene Jarvis could single-handedly create a classic like Defender, to the present, when a whole company is required to crank out a single game.
But is this stuff of any interest to the players of those games? As far as I’m concerned, it most certainly is.
Joystick Nation provides an interesting study of how people have come to regard games, and how the game designers and manufacturers have responded. It points out some fascinating, and often curiously conflicting, trends: arcade were once dimly-lit places where anyone from any walk of life could gather (so long as they had a roll of quarters), and have now mutated into pastel-colored Chuck E. Cheese-esque “family entertainment centers” which appeal largely to middle-class white baby boomers. In the meantime, the games themselves have gone from mildly harmless abstractions to exercises in constant tension and, in some cases, graphic violence.
And despite what game advocates may say, it’s hard to ignore the issue of violence in video games in the post-Columbine world in which we live. It’s not an issue that is likely to go away any time soon - if anything, Herz’s brief discussions of game violence and ratings systems is pretty tame compared to debates on the same topics just a few years later. I actually think that a second edition of Joystick Nation is merited. What has transpired since then? Copyright battles over emulation, the classic gaming “scene” has been filled with more outspoken, opinionated and ardent fans, and of course the video game violence debates that have erupted since the past few years’ series of school shootings.
So, does Joystick Nation merit a second look? You betcha. The psychology of the game designers and the game players can’t be overlooked. The culture that gave rise to video games - and the culture which those same games have spawned - bears examination. The marketing of games, both in the days of the Atari 2600 boom and in the Nintendo age, is a fascinating exercise in corporate (and consumer) psychology.
Why do gamers seem to be so intent on bashing Joystick Nation? Maybe it’s because they don’t know the meaning of the phrase fin de siecle. This is not a book that makes fun of gamers - if anything, a cynical eye is more likely to be turned toward the corporate entities that milk game fans for all they’re worth. The author herself is a classic game fan, and makes several shrewd observations about the kind of people we are. But she also makes equally astute observations about the psychology and sociology behind the video game phenomenon. Did these concepts go so far over the heads of the audience as to create a hostile reaction?
Perhaps Joystick Nation will fare better in its upcoming televised form on PBS. While the book’s text is more about people than games, the use of video and audio from those games may balance things out better for the gaming audience, and make them feel like they’re on safer ground.
Joystick Nation never claimed to be a concise history of the video game industry. For that, you’d be best advised to check out Don Thomas’ I.C. When web site or Leonard Herman’s Phoenix. Joystick Nation, on the other hand, is about “how video games stole our quarters and rewired our minds.” The book isn’t just about the games - it’s also about us. And perhaps, when one considers that much of the Atari generation grew up to become what some people might less-than-kindly refer to as computer geeks, this is why some readers have a problem: it’s a reflection, and not an entirely inaccurate one, of us.
This article appeared in Classic Gamer Magazine #4 (Autumn 2000). Special thanks to editor Chris Cavanaugh for giving me permission to reprint this as part of my portfolio.
