Atari Design

Raiford Guins is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the Media School and Adjunct Professor of Informatics at Indiana University, USA. He has authored Game After: A Cultural Study of Video Game Afterlife (2014) and Edited Clean Version: Technology and the Culture of Control (2009) and co-edited several collections including The Object Reader with Fiona Candlin (2009) and Debugging Game History: A Critical Lexicon with Henry Lowood (2016). Guins serves as co-editor of MIT Press’s Game Histories book series with Lowood and is a founding editor of ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories also with Lowood and Laine Nooney. His writings on game history appear in the following journals and magazines: American Journal of Play, The Atlantic, Cabinet, Design and Culture, Design Issues, Digital Culture & Education, Game Studies, Journal of Design History, Journal of Visual Culture, and Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture.

• List of ImagesList of PlatesPrologue: Not on DisplayAcknowledgementsIgnition: Advanced Electronics and StylingZero to 60 in 25¢Design History of Video Games1. Game Design is Inadequate2. Platform Studies Doesn’t Scratch These Surfaces3. Coin-op Video Games Machines are Complex Artifacts4. Cabinet Design is DesignTaking Anonymous History for a SpinChapter I: Start With a Clean Piece of PaperMan, that thing needs some helpBEAUTIFUL SPACE-AGE CABINET: A Plasticine MomentLow Key Cabinet, Suitable for Sophisticated Locations: The Veneer of Game HistoryNever Leave Well Enough Alone…Chapter II: Come and Play MeFar OutMore Than a BoxIndependent Functionality, or Designing “Atari Style”2 Game Module, or On the Importance of Not Shitting in the PunchbowlProject Development, or Everything You Wanted to Know About Video Pinball (But Never Thought to Ask an Industrial Designer)Chapter III: Happy StuffUncabinet Good Design is Good for (the Coin-Op) BusinessCabinets as Graphically Design ProductsChapter IV: A Kinesthetic World of Shapes and ColorBold ImpactAs you get Excited you Start to Hug the GameEnvironmental CommunicationCommunicative EnvironmentsChapter V: Shifting GearsParking Brake: Look Beyond Finished Form

Atari Design is an original and inspiring monograph reminding us that histories of video games (and computing) should not be reduced to programs and electronics only; they should also address design in its traditional sense.