Hot Tubs and Pac-Man: Gender and the Early Video Game Industry in the United States (1950s–1980s)

Anne Ladyem McDivitt

Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2020

Hot Tubs and Pac-Man

Gender and the Early Video Game Industry in the United States (1950s–1980s)

Anne Ladyem McDivitt

Volume 1 in the series Video Games and the Humanities

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668575

Overview
Contents

About this book

This work looks at the gendered nature of the US video gaming industry. Although there were attempts to incorporate women into development roles and market towards them as players, the creation of video games and the industry began in a world strongly gendered male. The early 1980s saw a blip of hope that the counter-cultural industry focused on fun would begin to include women, but after the video game industry crash, this free-wheeling freedom of the industry ended along with the beginnings of the inclusion of women. Many of the threads that began in the early years continued or have parallels with the modern video game industry. The industry continues to struggle with gender relations in the workplace and with the strongly gendered male demographic that the industry perceives as its main market.

Author / Editor information

Anne Ladyem McDivitt, University of Alabama, USA.

Reviews

Anne Ladyem McDivitt has succeeded in writing an exceptionally thoroughly researched and extremely readable book that will be an important foundation for the field of the history of digital games, for it deconstructs the founding myths of the US games industry around Nolan Bushnell and Atari. McDivitt has found and thoroughly prepared exciting new sources for her readers. It can be assumed that many subsequent researchers will gratefully draw on these research results. (translated from German)

Eugen Pfister: Rezension zu: McDivitt, Anne Ladyem: Hot Tubs and Pac-Man. Gender and the Early Video Game Industry in the United States (1950s–1980s). Berlin 2021. ISBN 978-3-11-066446-1, In: H-Soz-Kult, 26.04.2021, <www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-95835>.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
List of Tables and Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
“Just Way Too Many Guys Crammed Into One Place” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
“What Can You Expect from a Guy in Charge of Joysticks?” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
“A Gentler Touch to the World of Video Games” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
Atari Generation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
“Are you Man Enough to Run with Us?” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Pages
- Front matter: 12
- Main content: 136
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 3
- Coloured Illustrations: 2
- Tables: 2
Keywords: Gender studies; Video games; Pac Men; United States of America

eBook

Published: October 12, 2020
ISBN: 9783110668575

Hardcover

Published: October 12, 2020
ISBN: 9783110664461