The Emergence of Gamer Culture and the Gaming Press: the Uk Videogame Magazine As Cultural and Consumer Guide, 1981-1993
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THE EMERGENCE OF GAMER CULTURE AND THE GAMING PRESS: THE UK VIDEOGAME MAGAZINE AS CULTURAL AND CONSUMER GUIDE, 1981-1993. By Robin Bootes A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement of Newcastle University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2016 Contents Page Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Literature Review 26 Chapter 3: Methodology 46 Chapter 4: Arbitration to celebration – the evolution of the videogame magazine 62 Chapter 5: The videogame review as system of media critique 84 Chapter 6: The Illustrated gaming magazine cover, adolescent masculinity, and 116 the geek aesthetic Chapter 7: User Generated Content as representation and regulation 162 Chapter 8: Conclusion 185 Bibliography 197 1 Chapter 1: Introduction This thesis examines how the early UK videogame magazine articulated videogaming as both a cultural industry and as a social practice. The research enquires into the key functions of the gaming magazine, and asks how these functions were performed. By tracing the evolution of the role of videogame magazines, from arbitration to celebration, the study shows how these media texts provide a unique route to understanding early gaming culture in the UK. The theoretical framework for the thesis is partly informed by Bourdieu, specifically through his work on the cultural intermediary and cultural capital, and connects to contemporary academic studies on the formation of UK videogame culture (Kirkpatrick, 2015), whilst progressing previous engagements with the topic of UK micro-computing as a masculine pastime (Haddon, 1988a; Haddon, 1988b; Haddon, 1988c; Haddon, 1990; Haddon, 1992). Textually orientated discourse analysis is combined with content analysis to examine over 100 magazines from 1981 to 1993. The analysis approaches the magazines on a section by section basis: from the editorial manifestos often included in launch issues, to exploring the games review as a new form of quantitative media critique. The cover pages and advertising content are analysed as part of a distinct hyper-masculine gaming aesthetic, whilst the reader’s letters pages offer an example of how user generated content (UGC) can come to both represent and regulate subcultural discourse. The thesis confirms that the videogame specialist press played a defining role across the 1980s and early 1990s regarding the growth and consolidation of emerging videogame practices, both in terms of production and consumption. This Introductory chapter has five sections, and begins by stating the case for examining the videogame magazine. Secondly it establishes what kind of ‘gamer’ or ‘gaming’ culture is being conceptualised for the purposes of the thesis. Thirdly it outlines the significance of hobbyism as a precursor to gaming culture. Fourthly it highlights Bourdieu’s concept of the cultural intermediary as a vital tool to understanding the journalistic practices of the specialist gaming press. Finally, the introduction moves on to provide a chapter by chapter outline and summary of the thesis as a whole. 2 Why Study Videogame Magazines? It seems fitting to begin this thesis with the question, one I have been asked many times during the six years that this study has taken to complete - Why are you looking at old videogame magazines? Asked by fellow academics, and non-academic friends alike, there is a level of quizzical uncertainty, even humour to the question; a sometimes plaintive why? Certainly as media texts these magazines resist seriousness. They are juvenile, playful, consumerist guides, arguably little more than advertorials for software companies. Furthermore, they are guides for games that very few people play anymore. The magazines are ostensibly throwaway items, made obsolescent and superseded a few months after they went to print. With that in mind it does seem reasonable to ask what relevance do old videogame magazines have today, and indeed what level of relevance did they have originally, in order to give them significance. To answer the last part first, the question of what gives them historical significance, part of what makes early UK videogaming magazines interesting as texts, invaluable as an archive, and a distinct category of media production, is their innovation and popularity. As publications designed specifically for the gaming sector they are globally the first of their type, and whilst initially niche they quickly grew into a strong specialist industry. By 1983 combined totals of home computer magazines were outselling women’s magazines (Haddon, 1988c, p. 5), with some brand circulations passing 100,000 copies (Kirkpatrick, 2015). To provide some context this is in a market where computer ownership was itself only at around 1 million. The chances are if you had a micro-computer you bought one of these magazines. This level of popularity matters because it enabled them to inform many of the debates around computer usage, and gaming identity, that attended the expansion of videogames as an entertainment industry in the 1980s. Furthermore, whilst the niche character of videogame magazines might reduce what can be termed their ‘scale’ (the amount of the world they generate representations about), they do hold high degrees of ‘repetition’, ‘commonality’ and ‘stability’ (Fairclough, 2003). As a result they do show a notably cohesive sense of identity. This gives the UK videogaming magazine immense discursive potential, one that only recently has begun to be recognised within academia. 3 The significance of the videogame magazine is connected to their role as record and agent of societal change, in that they both reflect, and construct, the tastes of their producers and consumers. They ‘provide us with an invaluable archive through which we can chart the development of a culture and a way of speaking about computers and software that elevates games to a position of prominence.’ (Kirkpatrick, 2015, p. 13) As the Kirkpatrick quote emphasises, by understanding the gaming magazine we can gain a clearer awareness of how gaming as a culture emerged. The agency of these texts enable them to operate as elements of social events, they ‘have causal effects – i.e. they bring about changes.’ (Fairclough, 2003, p. 8) Furthermore, from such a discourse analysis perspective, ‘it is vital to understand these consequences and effects if we are to raise moral and political questions about contemporary societies,’ (Fairclough, 2003, p. 14). In stating that the case for studying gaming magazines is that they are uniquely influential agents in the evolution of early gaming culture, one response might be but why study videogaming at all. In which the cycle of justifications is to a large extent repeated. The value of studying games has been well established within academia, and in the broader business community. The history of game studies is in part a story of such justifications and self- questioning. I shall only briefly touch upon the matter here, as it has been so thoroughly attended to elsewhere, to state that the study of computer games has societal relevance due to a wide range of factors, which combined make gaming exemplary with regards to comprehending ‘fundamental social and cultural processes.’ (Kirkpatrick, 2013, p. 1). These include gaming’s role in the development of digital technologies and attendant social transformations, including the emergence of PCs and the diffusion of technical interfaces, the rise of the internet and networked virtual spaces, new working practices, and as part of a billion dollar global cultural industry (Kirkpatrick, 2013). Also, more broadly than this, and referring back to much earlier ludic studies (Huizinga, 1949; Caillois and Barash, 1961), to understand our forms of play is to more broadly understand our society and our psyche, the character of play that exists across cultures. It is the argument of this thesis that these niche magazines played a lead role in the story of videogames becoming a distinct form of entertainment and cultural practice. Yet, crucially, they have been overlooked both in the popular media, and in the field of games studies, due in part to a pervasive US-Japanese bias that is technologically determined. The corporate 4 success of console gaming by Sega & Nintendo in the 1990s, and Sony & Microsoft to the current day, has retroactively wiped our cultural memory of the trusty micro-computer. To accept such a narrative, and believe that the micro-computer is no longer relevant, is to accept an obsolescence based narrative of the gaming industry (Newman, 2012): that the best is always the next, and the past is to be discarded. Furthermore, not only is the 1980s relevant, it is arguably the most significant period in the history of gaming culture. By which I mean the period of most significant determination of gaming as a cultural field. It is the principle period in history in which gaming becomes a recognisable social practice, with conventions, rituals, language, and meanings that still remain in force today. In summary, to understand gaming culture (present and past) you need to fully comprehend its emergence in the 1980s and early 90s, and to do that you have rely (like so many gamers did back then) upon the gaming magazine. What is gaming culture? When examining the emergence and evolution of a culture, it is necessary to first outline what is being summoned when using the term ‘culture’, both generally, and with regards to gaming culture specifically. In this thesis I am utilising a ‘social’ definition of culture, one where culture ‘is a description of a particular way of life which expresses certain meanings and values not only in art and learning but also in institutions and ordinary behaviour. The analysis of, from such a definition, is the classification of the meanings and values implicit and explicit in particular ways of life, a particular ‘culture’.’ (Williams, 1961, p. 57) Williams distinguishes various definitions of ‘culture’ not to prioritise, but rather to stress the common areas and tensions between them, and suggests that it is those commonalities and tensions that make for fertile conceptual ground.