Getting a Feel for the Games

Abstract

This chapter describes the formation of a new language of game appraisal over the course of the 1980s. Central to this is the emergence of game-specific terminology, particularly the notion of ‘gameplay’, and new ways of talking about games that present them as soliciting ‘deep’ engagement and providing pleasures unique to them and appreciated by gamers. This involves two points of departure: first, games played in arcades, home computers and TV gaming centres begin to be viewed as sources of the same kind of experience, to be assessed in essentially similar ways. Second, there is a structural break in the middle of the 1980s, after which the logic of game evaluation shifts, reflecting gaming’s autonomy as a cultural practice, especially its separation from hobbyist computing.