ComputerGameHome

STS 145/HPS 163.

History of Computer Game Design:

Technology, Culture, Business

Winter 2005

Source: Softline 2 (March 1983). Front cover.

Overview of the Course

This course provides a historical and critical approach to the evolution of computer and video game design from its beginnings to the present. It brings together cultural, business, and technical perspectives. Students should come away from the course with an understanding of the history of this medium, as well as insights into design, production, marketing, and socio-cultural impacts of interactive entertainment and communication.

The course will offer reading, discussion, guest presentations and projects on the developing culture and technology of computer and video game design. Historical contexts include entertainment media, computing technology, applications of gaming technology and business history. Topics include: play in human culture; early computer games from Chess to Spacewar; the role of artificial intelligence research; history of computer graphics and sound technology; the evolution of techniques and genres of computer game design; business competition; games and the microcomputer revolution; networked gaming; gadgets and games as factors in the evolution of software and hardware; marketing; gendering of games and game play; virtual worlds; simulation; video and computer game industries; technology transfer (e.g., military simulations).

Participation in this course requires use of Stanford's Coursework system; please enroll via Axess and verify your enrollment in Coursework.

"The History of Computer Game Design" is part of "How They Got Game: The History and Culture of Interactive Simulations and Videogames," a project funded by the Stanford Humanities Laboratory. The principle investigators are Prof. Timothy Lenoir of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Dr. Henry Lowood, Curator for History of Science and Technology Collections, both at Stanford University.

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