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Copyright by Carly Ann Kocurek 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Carly Ann Kocurek Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Masculinity at the Video Game Arcade: 1972-1983 Committee: Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt, Supervisor Janet M. Davis John Hartigan Mark C. Smith Sharon Strover Masculinity at the Video Game Arcade: 1972-1983 by Carly Ann Kocurek, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Acknowledgements Completing a dissertation is a task that takes the proverbial village. I have been fortunate to have found guidance, encouragement, and support from a diversity of sources. First among these, of course, I must count the members of my committee. Thanks in particular to Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt who, as chair, served as both critic and cheerleader in equal measure and who has guided this project from its infancy. Janet M. Davis’s interest in the sinews that connect popular culture to broader political concerns has shaped my own approach. Mark C. Smith has been a source of support for the duration of my graduate studies; his investment in students, including graduate and undergraduate, is truly admirable. Were it not for a conversation with Sharon Strover in which she suggested I might consider completing some oral histories of video gaming, I might have pursued another project entirely. John Hartigan, through his incisive questions about the politics of race and gender at play in the arcade, shaped my research concerns. I am grateful to all of my committee members; their support strengthened not only this project, but my scholarship more broadly. My peers in the Department of American Studies have offered empathy and friendship over the years. My cohort members Andrew Busch, Robin O’Sullivan, and Laurie Hahn Ganser entered the program with me in 2004; while they were among my first graduate school classmates, I am glad to count them as friends. Jeannette Vaught deserves credit for many things, but perhaps in particular for allowing me access to her complex’s swimming pool. Sean Cashbaugh’s unbridled enthusiasm for his work reminds me to have fun with my research; also, he once broke into my apartment for me when I managed to lose my keys. John Cline and I have seen each other through many of iv graduate school’s challenges. I am thankful for all the times he has served as a sounding board or a second pair of eyes for my own projects, but I am more indebted for reminders to pace myself – that an afternoon spent shuffling through used record bins or wandering bookstores is not a waste. Outside the department, Melanie Haupt has sat with me through endless hours typing away in Austin’s coffee shops; she is a wonderful coworker and an even better friend. Throughout my graduate studies, my family has been an unwavering source of support. My parents, Joe Kocurek and Betty Kutchera, have always been my biggest fans. My brother, Alex Kocurek, has supplied me with a steady stream of video games, documentaries, and other materials he thought might be relevant to this project. I think I still have his Nintendo DS somewhere around my house. Elinor Kutchera, my grandmother, was a model of generosity and kindness; her confidence in me was inspiring. She is sorely missed. My husband Trent Johnson has encouraged my work even as I have slowly transformed every surface in our house into a de facto desk. Last but not least, my thanks to all of the individuals who shared their stories with me through oral history interviews: Walter Day, Josh Gettings, Mark Hoff, Terry McNitt, Tim McVey, Jerry Parker, and Cindy Toopes. All of them have enriched my work. In particular, my thanks go to Walter Day, who not only regaled me with his tales of the pleasures and pitfalls of the arcade era, but also allowed me unfettered access to much of his personal archive of newpaper and magazine clippings, posters, and correspondence. On a related note, my thanks goes also to the Ottumwa Chamber of Commerce, which not only let me monopolize their Xerox machine for the better part of an afternoon, but assisted me with making interview arrangements and with finding my way through Ottumwa and the surrounding area. v Masculinity at the Video Game Arcade: 1972-1983 Carly Ann Kocurek, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt As the United States shifted toward a service-based economy and an increasingly digital media environment, American youth – particularly young men and boys – found an opportunity to play with these values in the then-novel video game arcade. The video game industry first came of age between the successful commercialization of Pong in 1972 and the U.S. gaming industry crash of 1983. In the interim, economic and play practices in the arcade itself and media representations of the arcade and its habitués shaped and responded to the economic and cultural upheavals of the period. Arcade machines were the first computers many Americans confronted. Through public discourse about gaming and gamers, Americans engaged in a critical debate about computerization, the move to digital media culture, the restructuring of the U.S. labor economy, and the competitiveness of American youth – particularly boys – in a Cold War culture conceived as both hostile and technologically oriented. This study demonstrates that video gaming was an arena in which Americans grappled with larger tensions about masculinity, globalization, labor, and digitalization. By analyzing gaming as a practice of everyday life, this work not only offers a cultural history of this period of gaming, but vi critical insights into the crystallization of masculine identity in a postindustrial, postmodern economy. vii Table of Contents List of Figures ........................................................................................................ xi Introduction: Making Gamers .................................................................................1 At Home in the Arcade ..........................................................................1 The Root of the STEM ...........................................................................6 Playing With History .............................................................................8 Level Up...............................................................................................12 Chapter 1 .....................................................................................13 Chapter 2 .....................................................................................14 Chapter 3 .....................................................................................16 Chapter 4 .....................................................................................17 Chapter 5 .....................................................................................18 Chapter 1: Coin-Drop Capitalism, or, Postmodernity at Play ...............................21 Toward a Phenomenology of the Video Game Arcade .......................24 Sight 26 Sound ...................................................................................................28 Play 29 Playing with Free Speech.....................................................................41 Leisure During a Labor Crisis ..............................................................45 From Pinball to Postmodernity ............................................................50 Summary ..............................................................................................57 Conclusion ...........................................................................................61 Chapter 2: Twin Galaxies ......................................................................................64 About Twin Galaxies ...........................................................................68 Arranging the Image ............................................................................70 The Photograph ....................................................................................74 Computer Culture at Play.....................................................................74 Good Technology, Good (Enough) Kids .............................................78 viii Gamers as Athletes ..............................................................................85 Arcade as Teenage Wasteland .............................................................87 Life Magazine’s Anthropological Eye .................................................94 Interpreting Gaming .............................................................................96 Conclusion .........................................................................................101 Chapter 3: The Agony and the Exidy ..................................................................104 Exidy Rising.......................................................................................107 Of Silver Screens and Death Screams ...............................................111 The Game and Its Discontents ...........................................................119 Infamy and Its Aftermath ...................................................................131 Panic and Profits ................................................................................136 Chapter 4: Programmed for Power: TRON, WarGames, and the Violence of the Digital .........................................................................................................141