Video Invaders: Everything You Want to Know About Video Games Plus How to Beat Them!

by Steve Bloom

A history of video games from its '50s roots to its immense popularity in the late '70s and early '80s, written by journalist Steve Bloom (with illustrations by Howard Cruse and Dan Steffan) and published by Arco Publishing in 1982. Chapters Who Really Invented Video Games?* Pac-Man and the Maze Monsters* The Inventors* Atari!* The Great Debate* Beating the Games

220 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Steve Bloom is a South African photographer and writer. Son of journalist, novelist, and political activist Harry Bloom, he is best known for his photography books and essays as well as his large scale outdoor exhibitions called Spirit of the Wild.

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was another book that I read for research, with Video Invaders being decidedly less academic than my previous reading. It's full of bizarre things, from anecdotes painting Nolan Bushnell of Atari as an early Silicon Valley management stereotype to an interview with two bratty 14-year old girls playing Pac-Man on roller skates, and has a lot of scattershot information about how the chips that made home consoles possible were developed, legal precedents against arcades set by anti-pinball court cases, and the CGI used in Tron. While this is interesting, it doesn't really make for coherent reading, and though it's presenting a lot of information, it doesn't really go into depth with any of it.

This book is most interesting for its chapter of interviews with game developers, some of whom give oddly fascinating accounts of their lives and work, and for the pre-gaming crash optimism that's fairly prophetic in hindsight, particularly when it comes to the author's first play of Pac-Man for the 2600. Video Invaders is an interesting read at times, but not always solidly constructed or useful narrative.