Errata for The Video Game Theory Reader 
  Edited by Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Jan 6, 2008
Updated:  Jan 29, 2008
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/vgtr.errata.txt

Notes on Errata:

Some of the entries below point out factual errors, some point out
stylistic or typographical errors, some are nothing more than my own
biased opinions and some simply add additional information.  YMMV.

The papers contained in this collection reference material from a wide
variety of disciplines such as critical theory, psychology, culture
theory, literature, film studies, semiotic studies, etc.  I freely
admit my ignorance of these and many other topics and deal with this 
issue ... by not dealing with this issue.  The errata below refer mostly 
to video game and computer history.

*************************************************************************

p. 6.  -- "... the movie _The Last Starfighter_ was based on an Atari
game that was never finished or released due, in part, to the 1984
industry crash."

This strongly implies that the game came first.  While it is possible,
the probability against it is a near certainty.  Consider that it was
only after Pac-Man became a huge hit that it became an animated series
(and curious enough, the animated series later became a video game,
Pac-Land).

In the movie, the protagonist plays a game called _Starfighter_, but
that game is a fiction.  It does not exist.  Atari was creating _The
Last Starfighter_ game as a tie-in to the movie and that is the game
that went unreleased.  More information about the prototypes that
survived can be found here:

http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/tlsf/tlsf.htm
http://www.atariprotos.com/5200/software/tlsf/tlsf.htm
http://www.atariprotos.com/8bit/software/tlsf/tlsf.htm

p. 11. -- "At the same time, however, the video game is unlike any
media to come before it, being the first to combine real-time game play
with a navigable, onscreen diegetic space; the first to feature avatars
and player- controlled surrogates that could influence onscreen events;
and the first to to require hand-eye coordination skills (except for
pinball, which was much more limited and not as complicated)."

Another exception is in order, that of early EM arcade games such as 
_Shooting Gallery_:

http://www.marvin3m.com/arcade/mshotga.htm

p. 58. -- "... iconic of the early games looked more and more archaic
as newer, more advanced consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System
(NES) and the Sega Master System (SMS) appeared, as well as the 
Coleco ADAM, Texas Instruments 99/4a, and Commodore 64, which were 
computers that also could play video games."

The point of the sentence is diluted by the time span of the consoles
and computers listed.  The introduction of the NES and SMS were
post-crash (1985 and 1986 in the US anyway), whereas the TI had already
been discontinued by 1984 and the ADAM (with technical specs similar to
the Colecovision) was just being introduced in 1983 (pre-crash).  It's
not difficult to agree that later consoles and computers made earlier
ones look archaic, but it isn't clear where one ends and the other
begins.

p. 58. -- "... cartridges for home systems could cost $20 to $30 each ...."

The range was slightly larger.  Many new Atari games had a price of $31.95
(Kangaroo from the Atari Club Newsletter was that price on release).  Zaxxon 
for the Colecovision was over $40 on release and games that were packaged with
additional controllers such as Colecovision Turbo were even more.  On the 
other hand, the awful Mythicon games for the 2600 had a list price under 
$10 ($9.95, if memory serves).

p. 59. -- "Apart from the graphics featured on their cabinets, arcade games
were sold less through packaging and advertising than through actual gameplay;
one decided to play either by watching the game in demo mode between games
or by watching the game being played by someone else."

This is true, but it is also true that game manufacturers did take out
ads for arcade games in the video game magazines of the time.  Also, it
isn't surprising that packaging and advertising were used far more for home 
games; not only was the potential market far larger, but young consumers 
were far more likely to desire a new game for their home system than simply a 
trip to an arcade to play the latest game.

p. 61/62 -- "With the release of Intel's 64-bit Pentium chip in 1993 ..."

Technically correct, if the addition of any 64-bit component to a chip 
allows one to term the chip "64-bit."  The original Pentium had a 64-bit 
bus, but virtually everything else was 32-bit.  It certainly could not
run 64-bit applications and could not address memory above 4 GB.  If 
Spacewar! is "commonly considered" to be the first real video game (a 
notion I do not agree with), one might also say that the original Pentium
chip is "commonly considered" to be a 32-bit chip.

p. 61/62 -- "... home computers and game consoles were ready to incorporate 
texture mapping into video games.  Two hit games also appeared in 1993 that 
incorporated texture mapping and changed the standards of computer games:
Doom and Myst."

Since the Pentium wasn't used in any console system of that era, it's unclear
how its release furthered texture mapping in game consoles.

Also, while Myst is a nice example of the use of texture mapping, its 
original design was on the Macintosh Quadra platform (if the Wikipedia entry 
is accurate) which used the decidedly 32-bit MC68040 chip.  This leaves
me more than a little confused as to the relationship between 64-bit 
computing and texture mapping.

p. 70 -- "... it's not clear if this simulator [Army Training Simulator based
on Battlezone] was ever built."

It was built.  Roms are in MAME.  Much info is now available on the 
_Bradley Trainer_, including:

http://www.safestuff.com/bradley.htm

p. 89 -- "... the Sony Playstation's success made the game console a common
part of a modern household, just like furniture."

This comment is (I guess) supposed to demonstrate the ubiquity of game 
consoles.  While the Playstation was and is a popular console, the sentence
seems a bit off the mark as it discounts the millions upon millions
of game consoles (both normal and handheld, if one wishes to count those)
that were sold previous to the introduction of the Playstation.  Indeed,
an argument could easily be made that the SNES or the NES or even the 
Atari 2600 made the game console part of a modern household.

p. 113 -- "Refashioning the bricks of Breakout into rows of insectoid or
skull-like aliens ...."

Good grief.  Comparing Breakout to Space Invaders is fine; morphing one
into the other stretches the comparison past the breaking point.

Here is Eddie Izzard describing a scene from _The Great Escape_:

"I've turned my uniform inside out, turned up my collar, I've turned my 
buttocks into a hat, and I now look like a German officer ... but I have no 
buttocks."

(http://www.auntiemomo.com/cakeordeath/d2ktranscription.html)

p. 114-115 -- Endnotes 37 and 38 reference Herz, which is always a red flag.
Is it foreshadowing?  Are we to be treated to some specious observations?
Sadly, yes:

"Asteroids, Defender, Centipede, Missile Command, Galaxian, Star Castle,
Tempest, Qix and Zaxxon all featured claustrophobic diegeses ...."

Centipede and Qix and Galaxian?  ok.
Tempest and Asteroids?  Arguably at later levels.
Star Castle and Missile Command?  I don't see it.
Defender?  Go on, pull the other one.

p. 159 -- "... platform games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario
and Donkey Kong ....  These games coupled a strongly unidirectional
screen movement from left to right ...."

First, the correct title of Super Mario is Super Mario Bros.  Second,
Donkey Kong was indeed a platformer, but it certainly did not have a
strongly unidirectional screen movement from left to right.

p. 159-160  -- "Taken together with an option to scroll, as in games such
as Football and Defender, this effectively erased the boundaries of the 
screen.  Instead of limiting the game world itself, the monitor now set
the limit as to how much of it a player could see ....  After all, 
a player of such games needs to be ever-conscious of the fact that
her nemesis could reside just outside the visible field, ready and
waiting to destroy her."

Football (Atari Football?) and Defender are not terribly good examples.
The scrolling of Atari Football had much to do with a race between
an X and an O as controlled by two persons furiously spinning a tracball
and almost nothing to do with an off-screen nemesis.  In contrast, 
off-screen enemies were important in Defender, but the game also had a 
radar at the top of the screen where the entire "world" and its enemies 
could be seen.

p. 160 -- "Until recent years, when personal computers' processors and
graphics cards became powerful enough to handle complicated 3-D worlds,
the development of video games was dominated by arcade games ...."

If we assume that the author is referring to the first of the id software
games in 1991/1992, the statement is incorrect.  Certainly, by the time
the NES had taken over as the dominant home game system and later with
the introduction of the Genesis, development of home video games was
almost certainly dominant.

p. 160 -- "Howertank One" should be "Hovertank One"

p. 161 -- The name of the Super Mario game for the Nintendo 64 was
Super Mario 64.

p. 172 -- "... the original Donkey Kong (1981) game featured the player
as a male plumber Mario attempting to rescue Princess Zelda from the giant
male ape."

If we examine the original US flyer found here:

http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=316&image=2

we find that the the rescuer is Mario the carpenter and the rescuee (?) is 
"the beautiful maiden" or "the Beautiful Girl."

p. 172 -- "... there was no dialogue or interaction between the characters
[Mario and the beautiful maiden]."

It was true there was no dialogue, unless the beautiful maiden yelling 
"Help" can be counted as such.  On the other hand, each time Mario 
completed a level, both Mario and the maiden stood facing each other with 
a heart between them.  Clearly that is interaction, non-verbal as it may be.

Chapter 8 -- The title of this paper is: 

_Hot Dates and Fairy-Tale Romances, Studying Sexuality in Video Games_

by Mia Consalvo and it covers a wide variety of topics related to, not
surprisingly, sexuality in video games.  One large section discusses
Final Fantasy IX and that is essentially the "Fairy-Tale Romances" bit.
However, the other section, which considers The Sims, contains precious
little about "Hot Dates."  Indeed, the expansion pack for The Sims called
_The Sims: Hot Date_ is not considered at all (it was not available at
the time of writing and this is mentioned by the author in endnote 28).

The title seems to be a triumph of style over accuracy.

p. 233 -- "In other words, it is the author's decision to make the source
code or editing tools available to the player.  Certainly, a simauthor
who allows her public to alter her work is quite different from the 
traditional idea that we have of the role of the narrauthor.  Nevertheless,
with or without meta-rules, the simauthor always has the final word and
remains in charge because total freedom is impossible since it would 
imply that no rules are unchangeable and therefore the game could literally
become anything."

I disagree (and circle gets the square).  Sure, if an author provides
me with a non-extendable editing tool, what I might do is limited.
However, if I get source code, it's game over (and bad pun time).  The
"game" is simply the reflection or expression of the code; if I get the
code, the game could literally become anything and we are left with
shades of gray rather than black and white:

If I replace 1 line of code, is that OK with the author?  
How about 2 lines?  
How about 5% of the code?
What if I change all the flesh-eating monsters into pretty flowers?
How about 99.9% of the code?

Indeed, because video games run on computers, one can easily argue that
I do not even need the source code.  With a monks patience and a lot of
work, I can simulate the running of the code.  I could trace what
each instruction does, making changes as I understand what is going on.
For all but the simplest of programs, this is not practical, but it is
possible.

In short, the simauthor is the fountainhead, but she does not control the
path the stream ultimately takes for each person.

p. 281 -- "This map and the menu of possible missions available and
aircraft to fly [in Combat Flight Simulator 2] are subject to optional
modification by means of additional scenarios that can be purchased
from game design firms or downloaded as shareware from enthusiastic
amateur programmers."

This dichotomy is inaccurate.  Some add-ons are for sale and some
are shareware, but many are released under a variety of licenses
including donationware and freeware.  Indeed, the author later mentions
"_In Defense of Australia_, a downloadable 'freeware' campaign."

p. 282 -- "The Microsoft Games Division team set out to create a 
compelling and hence profitable game ...."

The phrase "and hence profitable" seems out of place in a paper that is
supposed to be discussing history, narrative and temporality and is
almost certainly beyond the scope of the author's knowledge.

Microsoft is a corporation; if they could repackage the original Pong
and sell a million copies at $49.95, they would.  A compelling game may
be profitable, but compulsion is neither sufficient nor necessary for
profitability.

The whole paragraph reads fine without "and hence profitable" in it; 
this, combined with the dichotomy above and the quotes around the word
"freeware" makes me wonder about the author's possible bias.

p. 291 -- "Simulator technology was developed from the 1930s ..."

This page:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bleep/SimHist1.html

puts the date back as far as 1910.