“Playing the Deja-New: Plug it in and Play TV Games and the Cultural Politics of Classic Gaming”

Citation:

Payne, Matthew T. “Playing the Deja-New: Plug it in and Play TV Games and the Cultural Politics of Classic Gaming.” Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games. Edited by Zach Whalen and Laurie N. Taylor. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2008: 51-68.

From the anthology’s Introduction:

“‘Playing the Deja-New: Plug it in and Play TV Games and the Cultural Politics of Classic Gaming’ discusses the marketing logic and intellectual property issues surrounding the popular dedicated controller devices. Comparing the games licensed for these plug-and-play units with the open source MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), Payne argues that these commercially licensed properties create a revisionary almost mythological narrative of gaming history that downplays the gritty reality that MAME and home-brew community celebrate.”  (pp. 7-8)