JAWS 2 (1) pp. 43–50 Intellect Limited 2016
Journal of Arts Writing by Students
Volume 2 Number 1
© 2016 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jaws.2.1.43_1
Treva M. Pullen
Concordia University
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Arcade fever: Economics,
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Abstract
Keywords
How is it that the paradigm shift from mechanical to video-based arcade gaming
has created a loyal video game following that holds true today? This article will
explore the historical development of video arcade games, their instantaneous popularity and their continued presence in the world of contemporary gaming. In reading
the affective experience of gaming through the lens of actor-network-theory (ANT), a
number of factors can be specified for the popularity of nostalgic gaming: the affective design of interface, the emergent symbols of the arcade game, the spectacular
nature of play, the mastery of a game (maximizing play per dollar spent), and the
affective potential of precognitive actions and its relation to nostalgia. This leads to
the conclusion that all these factors co-produce a wholly novel experience particular
to the network of the arcade.
arcade
interface
affect
design
video games
gaming
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Introduction: Odds, Ends and Classic Games
Entering into Get Well, a Toronto bar located at Dundas Street West and
Ossington Avenue, I am struck by the decor borrowing from a multitude
of eras of material cultural collaged together in a single space. The wooden
bar, constructed of salvaged material, echoes a contemporary interior design
aesthetic while the shiny glass covered disco ball hanging from the ceiling
recalls 1970s era dance clubs, and the subsequent revival of the disco ball as
accessory in the 1990s. Early twentieth-century pastoral landscape oil paintings hang salon-style on the walls, each enthroned in ornate silver and gold
painted frames. 1960s diner-style metal chairs sit underneath tables echoing
styles of each decade between the 1920s and 1980s. A doric-style column,
inspired by ancient Greece, stands at the end of the bar as a decorative accent.
Lining an entire wall of Get Well are a series of arcade machines originating
from the 1970s and 1980s. All of the machines are in working conditions and
are often occupied by a number of beer drinking gamers in their twenties.
The atmosphere of Get Well – including its interior decor and the promise of
classic arcade game play – draws a particular crowd of young and hip individuals interested in the nostalgia of past eras, a sentiment shared by much
of the twenty-first-century western youth culture. The space has been curated
to create an experience for contemporary bar-goers that is unique and would
otherwise not be accessible, making reference to modes of gaming from
the 1970s and 1980s. This space is both unique in its assemblage of games,
odds and ends, and typical in its nostalgic nod to eras past typical of hipster
culture. As Toronto youth congregate in Get Well to experience antique games
of the past, I wonder why so many are so drawn to this type of gameplay,
in this atmosphere, at this bar? In examining this particular experience and
the subsequent draw towards classic arcade games, I would like to explore
the paradigm shifts in gaming, specifically economic factors, affective userexperience, interface design and community or spectacular forms of play. I
believe that it is through these shifts that the arcade has fostered a thriving
game culture in the 1970s that continues to draw gamers today.
The multitude of classic arcade games available to Get Well’s young and
hip patrons offer a view of 1970s and 1980s technologically influenced material
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Figure 1: Game machines in Get Well bar (2016). Reproduced with permission.
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Arcade fever
culture. This was a period of rapid technological advancement, marked by evershifting relationships between humans and machines. The release of the first
video games in the 1970s marks a paradigm shift in the occupation of leisure
time in Western culture, specifically in regards to gaming and the arcade.
Games such as Pong by Atari Inc., launched in 1972, and Astro Race by Taito,
launched in 1973, signalled the development of new human–machine relationships and the shifting of the nature of human play.
Historical Framework: Flying Through the Asteroid Belt
It should be noted that arcade games were not a new invention of the 1970s.
Rather, they had been around since the turn of the century, and yet, had
remained the same for nearly 70 years. That is, until the release of the first
video arcade game Computer Space in 1971. Computer Space was unlike any
arcade games before it for two reasons: the first being its design, the second
its movement away from a mechanically driven system towards computergenerated entertainment. The game’s hardware interface design appeared as
though it has been ripped from a science fiction film. The fiberglass body was
curved into an alien form, perhaps influenced by interior designs appearing
in The Jetsons animated television series. The game was available in a number
of flashy hues such as a deep space-inspired green, candy apple red or bright
sunny yellow; all of the paint options were flecked with a sparkly glitter coating inspired by the cosmos and evocative of shiny new technology. The second
dramatic change to arcade-style gaming in the period was that Computer Space
marked the beginning of the video game era. Earlier games were controlled
by relays and solenoids that were manipulated by the user with a silver ball
to be moved around a playing field. Computer Space, unlike earlier games, had
a circuit board that allowed the player to manipulate a spaceship through
an asteroid belt using a button based interface that communicated real-time
action, displaying computer graphics on a shiny screen housed inside the
machine’s space age body.
The video arcade games featured inside Get Well are used as novelty items
that make reference to technology once revolutionary but since replaced by a
plethora of new more realistic, immersive and true to life styles of gaming i.e.
Playstation’s high quality graphics, Wii’s motion sensory gameplay, and the
virtual reality gaming of Occulus Rift. I find it interesting that gamers continue
to frequent Get Well to stand and play on antiquated gaming systems. In
order to posit the contemporary fascination in such machines I would like to
unpack the implications of arcade video games systems of the 1970s in relation to paradigm shifts in human machine interactions, economic structures of
continued game play and the affective experience of game interfaces.
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Symbiosis in Gameplay: Designing the Interface
The user and the designed machine interface must be compatible, generating a
stimulating relationship between the two that is mutually beneficial – meaning
that the user is enjoying the act of play and the machine is facilitating the expenditure of money by the user. French philosopher Bruno Latour’s actor-networktheory (ANT) (Latour 2005) supports such ‘relational materiality’ (the material
extension of semiotics), suggesting that all entities achieve their ‘essence’ through
their relationships to others. The signs of play exuded by the video arcade game
are activated by a reciprocal interaction between machine and user. Associations,
or reciprocal interactions, within networks form the actor’s definition, and provide
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Treva M. Pullen
them with substance, action, intention and subjectivity. According to ANT, prior
to the actor’s reciprocal engagement with the video arcade game, it does not
have any ‘substance’ or ‘essence’ – this being what makes the game what it is, or
will be when an actor begins to play – rather, the ‘essence’ of the video arcade
game is determined by its involvement in a network. ANT seeks to explain how
material-semiotic networks come into being and act as a whole. Relationships
between actors (human and non-human) in a network can be understood both
materially (between things) and semiotically (between concepts or ideas). In
the matter of video arcade games, participating actors may include the physical structures of the game – such as the console and human player – as well as
the conceptual structures (signifiers) such as machine language. Signifiers are
dependent on the shifting signs and symbols that emerge from their networks
with the actor. Conceptual structures (or signifiers) may include the languages of
the machine; such as sound, text and symbols like Pac-Man’s titular yellow character, whose munching mouth motion suggests that he is meant to consume; or
the colourful ghosts – the antithesis to Pac-Man’s ‘good’ figure – signifying the
villains or ‘bad guys’ in the game.
At Get Well on any given Friday night, the increase in actors to the
network functions to enhance the affective potential of gaming. As a crowd
of friends or strangers gathers round a vintage Pac-Man machine, lights flicker
and electronic music hums from the machine, and this experience culminates,
heightening the affective gaming experience of the player. This accumulating
interplay between a network of actors, an affective engagement with the interface and a return to the nostalgic affective experience of past gameplay creates
an experience of gaming particular to the set up of bars like Get Well. This
does not negate the enjoyable experiences of home gaming through an XBOX
or Playstation gaming console, though it does present a particular constellation of phenomena that a gamer may crave to experience and recreate.
The macro and micro scales are important to consider in these networks
as multiple networks may intersect or overlap around and within entities. On
a micro scale one can examine the ludic relationship between machine and
user and between user and audience, while on a macro scale one can consider
the implication of larger economic structures that influence and conduct the
development of game design.
In regards to the economic implications of leisure activities, hobbies, and
play, the video arcade game created a massive shift in the way arcade game
players spent money to engage with machines. Arcades prior to 1971 involved
a standard payment structure in which a gamer would pay a set amount –
perhaps a nickel, dime or quarter depending on the game – for which they
would be given an allotted period of gameplay. With the advent of video arcade
machines the user payment system shifted. For the payment of a quarter a
gamer’s period of gameplay is not fixed but rather could vary between seconds
and hours; the duration of enjoyment is never defined at the outset of gameplay
when it comes to the video arcade. Due to the fact that games would often be
very short – depending on the gamer’s level of experience and intuition within
the individual game – arcade owners appreciated the high overturn of customers, which led to higher capital gain. For a player, the return on their monetary
investment is dependent on their expertise within game; therefore one will be
rewarded for their continued interaction with, and loyalty to, the game. The
more frequently a user plays, the better they will become at staying alive, their
gameplay will last longer, and their return on investment will increase.
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Arcade fever
Affecting the Gamer
I believe that there exists a more powerful and visceral draw towards video
games than the desire to master gameplay and increase the value of each
quarter spent: the affective experience of the game. The interface of the video
arcade game incites a visceral precognitive interaction, which maintains a
desire for continued gameplay. Affect, according to the works of primary affect
scholar Baruch Spinoza and his successors Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari, is characterized by embodied experience that is realized
through different (primarily emotional) states. Brian Massumi moves beyond
this definition to further distinguish between affect and emotion. He characterizes the affective experience, like Spinoza, as a state of the body, however
he expands this definition to say that affect is a pre-emotional and precognitive bodily experience or micro-perception that alters the body’s capacity to
act (either enhancing or diminishing), a moment that rests between the individual’s perceptible and imperceptible experience of embodiment (Massumi
2015). Thus, the connection between different kinds of video games is not
emotional but, rather, lies in the precognitive instinctual realm of the human
mind: the micro-perception.
When speaking to gamers about their cognitive experience and physical
actions during gameplay I was told their actions – such as pressing a button
or flicking a joystick – are often not registered in the conscious mind but
are visceral pre-cognitive actions that become conditioned based upon past
experiences during gaming. Gamers found it difficult to describe their automatic actions upon the interface, likely due to the fact that the body’s microperception cannot be fully captured by language as it ‘doesn’t just absorb pulses
or discrete stimulations; it unfolds contexts’ (Massumi 2002: 30). Likewise, an
affective response cannot be captured through communicative language, as it
is preconscious, it is expressed through physical actions such as facial expressions, posture, respiration – and in the case of interface interactions within
video gameplay, the slapping of buttons and jerking of joysticks.
Mechanical arcade games, such as pinball, whack-a-mole and foosball are
influenced by external forces such as gravity, and therefore open to physical
manipulation. This is opposed to the arbitrary nature of video arcade game
interaction, which ‘require[s] some level of habituation of response’ (Myers
2008: 47). Today, video games seek to mimic real life embodied experience
with hyper-realistic graphics, first-person gaming and more complex interface
technologies such as game controller, motion sensors and more. Early video
arcade games from the 1970s, such as those featured in Get Well, needed only
rough principles of an alternate space to communicate some understanding
of realism to the player. The space was simplified and depthless, such as the
design of Pac-Man from 1980. Using only a joystick with a red knob, gamers
control a yellow circle with a triangular mouth opening as he moved around a
two-dimensional maze in an attempt to eat 244 yellow dots and avoiding four
brightly coloured ghosts who were trying to follow and kill Pac-Man. Games
such as Pac-Man, are obviously not real events and players are fully aware of
this. As Ryan Pierson notes, ‘the game is an interface, and so for the player
the immediacy of the experience can only come through acknowledging
the medium’ (Pierson 2011: 25). Due to the fact that early video arcade games
do not mimic, or make reference to, real life the user must learn to interpret
and interact with the interface, without prior real life experience to dictate
their actions, just as the design of the interface must predict the array of
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possible affective user response i.e. hitting an arrow button pointing left to
propel Pac-Man’s yellow body to the left.
The experience of playing with an arcade video game at Get Well is exciting and playful and somewhat instinctual. Though I have very little experience
playing Pac-Man, Space Invaders or Donkey Kong I can feel myself adapting and
learning the game interface quickly as I play. The games – as they anticipate
common user interaction – adapt to my instinctual affective experience, as
I dodge left to avoid a bight blue ghost using a bright red joystick or jump
over a rolling barrel by hitting a bright orange ‘jump’ button. I understand
the appeal and enjoyment to be had when using these machines both upon
their revolutionary releases in the 1970s and 1980s and their current revival at
bars like Get Well in Toronto. The initial shift from mechanical to video-based
arcade games prompted a change in the visceral affective user experience
that gamers continue to cling to today. The major change between mechanical games towards the hardware/software model of the video arcade allowed
game designers to further appeal to the precognitive actions and interactions
of gaming through interface and software design. The fact that many Toronto
game enthusiasts return to Get Well to play on antiquated machinery – when
they could be immersed in hyper-real, first-person perspective games such as
Halo and Fallout 4 – illustrates the affective potential of simplistic modes of
gaming such as Tank, Pong, Asteroids and Frogger.
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Conclusion: Why We Caught Arcade Fever
Early video arcade games, as design objects, had an important cultural impact
on human machine interactions, affective gaming experiences, and economics of the arcade. The consoles are still used today, albeit in a new context as
nostalgic items that recall a technological paradigm shift in the 1970s. Video
arcade games are complex design entities which can be used to consider the
implications of machine engagement in the shift from mechanical arcade
games to computer generated gaming, facilitate monetary returns for the
game maker or owner, and predict and create affective experiences for their
users. The question remains; why is it that the affective potential of early electronic arcade games continues to draw users from a generation who witnessed
the rise of a new paradigm of home gaming?
The nostalgia of a return to an earlier affective experience in one’s life
may be an inherent draw. This return to a precognitive experience registered
through micro-perceptions creates a unique type of affective engagement that
is both present (in the moment) and past as it recalls the same mode of play
that has occurred once or many times over. It is the tension between playing
an arcade game such as Mario Brothers that one has played as a child and once
again as an adult that creates an experience that is nostalgic, conditioned and
thus mostly automated. The user and game interface become more and more
integrated as their interactions are either programmed or mainly instinctual.
Many of the gamers at Get Well are experienced arcade players. They have
played, and will continue to play, the same games for years. Their bodies and
gaming consoles seem to seamlessly fuse together through habitual affective
engagements over continuous years of play.
As expressed earlier, the location of gameplay may also influence this
experience, specifically the public nature of this engagement. The repetitive play is conditioned and nostalgic as well as being performative. Gamers
often play classic games for spectacle and Get Well’s players will often acquire
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Arcade fever
an audience of beer-drinking game aficionados and classic game collectors,
watching the performative spectacle of a gamer in the heat of a passionate
quest to break some records and attain a high score. It is through the affective
potential of nostalgic arcade gaming and the networked experience of community or public gaming that the arcade creates a unique site for experiencing.
How is it that the paradigm shift from mechanical to video-based arcade
gaming has created a loyal following to the video game that holds true today?
We know that the technology was revolutionary for the period, but more
seems to be implicated in this. It seems as though the facets of the video
game arcade: the quest for mastery to maximize one’s monetary investment,
the affective experience of the interface, the amalgamation of (wo)man and
machine, and the spectacle of community, provide the player with an experience that cannot be duplicated. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers and a
host of other games have truly given us arcade fever.
References
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The Jetsons (1962–1963, 1985–1987, United States: Hanna-Barbera Productions).
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—— (2015), ‘Collective expression: The ecology of thinking in action’, lecture
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Myers, David (2008), ‘The video game aesthetic: Play and form’, in Bernard
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Suggested Citation
Pullen, T. M. (2016), ‘Arcade fever: Economics, affect and interface design of
the 1970s and 1980s video arcade’, Journal of Arts Writing by Students, 2: 1,
pp. 43–50, doi: 10.1386/jaws.2.1.43_1
Contributor details
Treva Michelle Pullen is a curator, artist, critical theorist and Ph.D. candidate
in Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. Pullen holds an
MA in Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Art Histories – specialisation
in New Media – from OCAD University and a BFA from OCAD University with
a major in Criticism and Curatorial Practice and a studio minor in Drawing
and Painting. She has worked as a full-time curator at a Toronto-based gallery
and independently curated exhibitions such as #NATURE (2016), Threshold
(2015), Influenc(Ed.) Machines (2014), Flux (2013) and Flux II (2013). As a graduate student she has presented her research at conferences such as Concordia
University’s Graduate Humanities Conference (2015 and 2016), York University’s
Department of Art History Graduate Symposium (2016) and ISEA (2015).
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Pullen’s ongoing research explores a theory of ‘whimsical bodies’ as
expressed through the playfulness and agentic capacities of robotic art. The
term whimsical bodies is an evocative metaphor for the playful ecology and
creations of robotic art; reimagining and reanimating cybernetic objects as
they break from their role as passive recipients of traditional museum/gallery
spectatorship by theorising their hidden lives and potential through the lens
of Speculative Realism.
Contact: Concordia University, 2118-3 Greystone Walk Drive, Toronto, ON,
M1K 5J4, Canada.
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: trevamichelle.com
Treva M. Pullen has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that
was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
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