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Call of Duty: Pentagon Ops

Inside the weird synergies that launched the videogaming industry—and made the Pentagon fantasies in Call of Duty its stock in trade.
by Jesse Robertson via The Nation on October 24, 2024
Soldiers in combat gear stand by an advertisement for "America's Army," a military strategy game from 2002.

Video Games Are a Key Battleground in the Propaganda War

When video games went mainstream, the Pentagon realized their potential as a promotional tool, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on war-based games.
by Marijam Did via Jacobin on October 13, 2024
Artists conception of the Annis Mound and Village Site.

Against the Grain?

Native farming practices and settler-colonial imaginations in the video game "Empire: Total War."
by Thomas Lecaque via Age of Revolutions on March 27, 2023
Enemy monsters in first-person shooter game

A History of 'Hup,' The Jump Sound in Every Video Game

You can hear it in your head: the grunt your character makes when hopping a fence or leaping into battle. Its sonic roots trace all the way back to 1973.
by Bryan Menegus via Wired on March 26, 2022
Glowing icon of an app among cobwebs. Designed by Alex Castro.

Inside The Fight to Save Video Game History

Video game history is lost faster than we can preserve it.
by Ash Parrish via The Verge on March 21, 2022
TV with black and white video game on the screen

Computer Space Launched the Video Game Industry 50 Years Ago – Here's Why Haven't Heard of it

The game that launched today’s massive video game industry was not a roaring success. The oft-told story of why turns out to be off the mark.
by Noah Wardrip Fruin via The Conversation on October 11, 2021
illustration of people wearing different historical/cultural hats, each in their own frame, with a keyboard & mouse

Sid Meier and the Meaning of “Civilization”

How one video game tells the story of an industry.
by Neima Jahromi via The New Yorker on September 22, 2021
Two characters in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, one rabbit and one human.

Archivists Are Trying to Chronicle Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Unforgettable First Year

The challenge of documenting a virtual world.
by Jay Castello via The Verge on March 16, 2021
A screen with an image of a woman holding a baby and running.

The 'Oregon Trail' Studio Made a Game About Slavery. Then Parents Saw It

'Freedom!' tried to show the horrors of antebellum slavery and the courage of escaping slaves. But neither schools nor audiences were ready for it.
by Robert Whitaker via Vice on November 3, 2020
Advertisement commemorating 25 years of video games since the release of Oregon Trail.

Playing in the Past

Gameplay can be useful in history classrooms – but manufacturers have to think about how children will be affected by the competition.
by Robert Whitaker via Play Stuff Blog on December 9, 2019

Video Games Can Bring Older Family Members' Personal History Back to Life

How video game designers are 'gaminiscing' World War II stories.
by Bob De Schutter via The Conversation on September 18, 2019
Young men play a shooting video game in a French arcade (2009).
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Why We Scapegoat Video Games for Mass Violence and Why It’s a Mistake

It lets us avoid harder questions about our culture.
by Carly A. Kocurek via Made By History on August 9, 2019

What the Popularity of 'Fortnite' Has in Common With the 20th Century Pinball Craze

Long before parents freaked over the ubiquitous video game, they flipped out over another newfangled fad.
by Clive Thompson via Smithsonian on November 29, 2018

Pokémon Go, Before and After August 12

Gaming in the shadow Charlottesville's "Unite the Right" rally.
by Cassius Adair via Nursing Clio on September 5, 2018

Nostalgia is Gaming's Biggest Trend

"Tanglewood" is the first new Sega Genesis game in years - the latest example of gaming developers looking back, not ahead.
by Lewis Gordon via The Outline on August 27, 2018

The Beautiful, Genuine Artistry of Retro Video Games

Amidst so much politics and tribalism, they can provide portals into thoughtfully rendered alternate worlds.
by Addison Del Mastro via The American Conservative on May 18, 2018

The Last Scan

Inside the desperate fight to keep old TVs alive.
by Adi Robertson via The Verge on February 6, 2018
A screenshot from "Red Dead Redemption 2" of cowboy protagonist Arthur Morgan riding a horse in a western landscape.

What Red Dead Redemption II Reveals About Our Myths of the American West

On the making of a centuries-old obsession at the heart of American national identity.
by Tore C. Olsson via Literary Hub on August 28, 2024
Computer terminal with BASIC code on screen, surrounded by a cartoon potion, cauldron, and lips wearing a wizard's hat, in a magical lair.

Back to BASIC—the Most Consequential Programming Language in the History of Computing

Coding was a preserve of elites, until BASIC hit the streets.
by Clive Thompson via Wired on July 29, 2024
Newspaper headlines about C. Everett Koop's warnings about video games.

When the Surgeon General Warned About Pac-Man

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published an op-ed in The New York Times calling for a ‘Warning Label on Social Media Platforms.'
by Louis Anslow via Pessimists Archive on June 18, 2024
Screen shot from Oregon Trail gameplay showing Conestoga wagons and people on a western-style main street. Text reads: "Now loading the wagon..."

Let Us Now Enjoy the Incredibly Pure Tale of the Teacher Who Invented The Oregon Trail

He didn’t make a penny.
by Robert Whitaker via Slate on November 17, 2021
Regulus, painting by J.M.W. Turner, c. 1828.

It’s Time for Some Game Theory

Experiencing history in Assassin’s Creed.
by Caroline Wazer via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 8, 2021
The Mean Girls Game for DS

Meet the YouTubers Determined to Find Lost Media

New media meets old.
by Brendan Bell via The Verge on September 16, 2021
illustration of boy playing Cold War video game

First-Person Shooter Ideology

The cultural contradictions of Call of Duty.
by Daniel Bessner via The Drift on February 2, 2021

Mange, Morphine, and Deadly Disease: Medicine and Public Health in Red Dead Redemption 2

The video game offers a realistic portrayal of illness and public health in the 19th-century American West.
by Leah Richier via Nursing Clio on March 12, 2019
Screen shot from Red Dead Redemption 2, of a man in western clothing smoking a cigarette.

Red Dead Redemption 2 Confronts the Racist Past and Lets You Do Something About It

Poke around the game’s fictional South and you’ll find cross-burning Klansmen, whom you are free to kill.
by Jonathan S. Jones via Slate on February 4, 2019
Pinkerton detectives.

Who Were the Pinkertons?

A video game portrays the Wild West’s famous detective agency as violent enforcers of order. But the modern-day company disagrees.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on February 1, 2019

Model Metropolis

Behind one of the most iconic computer games of all time is a theory of how cities die—one that has proven dangerously influential.
by Kevin Baker via Logic on January 30, 2019
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You Have Died of Dysentery

A conversation with the lead designer of the 1985 version of the Oregon Trail video game.
via BackStory on December 21, 2018

Sex, Pong, And Pioneers

What Atari was really like, according to the women that were there.
by Cecilia D'Anastasio via Kotaku on February 12, 2018
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