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It seems my book The Golden Age of Video Games is finally readily available and, luckily, the early feedback I received so far by colleagues and some early customers was positive. Anyway I trust you guys more than anybody else so, if anyone from here has a chance to read it, I'd really love to have your comments and impressions.
Like other authors, my aim was to describe the early days of video gaming from their origins till the mid 90s and, throughout the book, I tried to maintain a very strong focus on carefully researched data and events while still providing plenty of interesting anecdotes to keep the narration alive and exciting (or, at least, that was my intention!)
The book is subdivided in 3 parts: "From research labs and academia to the birth and booming of a new industry" (obviously, there's a special focus on Atari here, thanks also to Mr. Ted Dabney who, besides writing the foreword, helped me a lot by providing some very interesting information I was not aware of), "The crash, home computers and an extra life" (offering an in depth analysis of the several reasons that triggered the infamous 1983 crash to proceed then to 8 bit machines, home computers and, obviously, the rise of Nintendo) and "16 bit power, new generations and the rise of the PC" (covering the systems up to the PlayStation and the rise of the IBM PC while early pioneers like Atari and Commodore sadly went out of business).
Each part is further subdivided in two halves: besides the historical analysis, also some among the most important games of the time are briefly reviewed and commented to point out their original elements and how they contributed to push the industry forward.
Last, two appendices, covering handhelds and the modern retro game collecting scene (the latter thanks to an interview with GameGavel's Mike Kennedy) are also included.
Overall, I put a lot of effort in this work: trying to provide an objective view of the developments of such a cutting edge and "fanboy" driven industry, of its memorable successes and failures, while also offering an international perspective, wasn't easy at all but, as an European working in Asia for an American company who started getting exposed to video games since the late seventies, I hope I got the proper background and inspiration
.I can say I am quite happy with the final result and, hopefully, it would ultimately be considered a worthy addition to the game history catalog, along with classics like Kent's "Ultimate History of Video Games", DeMaria/Wilson "High Score!" and Barton/Loguidice "Vintage Games", but that's up to the readers to decide!
And, if you read my whole rant till now... well, thanks a lot for your attention and support!!
Roberto
Edited by roberto, Sun May 1, 2011 4:53 AM.
