Choosing (Outer) Space to Play: Technical Affordances of Space-Themed Video Games

• In Event: 4S at Play: Video Game Studies in STS - II

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger project examining the role that space-themed games have played in the history of the video game industry. Space games have been present since its birth, with two such games – Nutting Associates’ Computer Space and Computer Recreations’ Galaxy Game, both developed in 1971 – being the first arcade video game cabinets able to take coins in exchange for plays. Over one hundred space games were released in the following decade alone, and the theme has persisted, boasting many contemporary Indie and AAA titles. Though their popularity has waxed and waned, the space game is perennial.
This paper thus asks the question: why are video game developers currently choosing to employ the space theme? In the 1970’s and 1980’s, there were real technical reasons why setting one’s game in space made sense. No one balked when told that the black background of a screen was the blackness of outer space; vector monitors, which could usually display only a white (though brilliant) phosphorus glow, provided players with crisply displayed starfields, asteroids, and ships. Hardware limitations could become features, and the space theme was a canvas upon which developers could experiment with the nascent medium of the video game. With the hypothesis that space is still technically desirable, if in different ways, this paper will answer its central question using a set of original interviews to be conducted at this year’s Game Developers Conference – an industry gathering of developers large and small from around the world.

Author

• Alexander John Daniel Mirowski, Indiana University