Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds Hardcover – June 1, 1997

In a relatively small 230 pages, J.C. Herz covers as much as any human can on the subject of videogames. She goes past the stereotypes and the controversy and starts at the beginning of the timeline; way back in the 1940's with the first pinball machine.Herz slowly moves up the ladder of history, looking back on her childhood memories of the games and interviewing videogame bigwigs all along the way. She stalls at the first electronic game (a simple space fight on a computer the size of your backyard), then speedily moves on to the next time landmarker. As she gets closer to the present, the audience for games grows and Herz gets more room to work with. She finds collectors, talks about the two "depressions" of videogames, uncovers the shift from TV-based games, to portables, then back to TVs and the current controversy of video violence.On top of this, Herz still leaves a good portion to touch on the How's, Why's, and "What ifs". She discusses what players think, how creators come up with new ideas and what may come of all the sudden political attention. Although an excellent addition to the book, a few parts could have been done better. For example, calling congressmen names doesn't particularly improve Herz's argument.Although the book would seem to appeal to a younger audience, don't be fooled. Herz's descriptions are written so clearly that even those who don't know what Nintendo is will understand. Her specialty, though, is in her metaphors. In her writing, games become Frosted Mini-Wheats, dining rooms, and Dr. Seuss's impossibly useful Sneed. Combine this with her extensive vocabulary and a good deal of wit to get a great book on a subject more interesting than you would suspect.

While not as engaging as the competition, this book offers enough to be read. Some of the stories are the same that you see in many other books, but this book does give you a better grasp of the emotional atmosphere of the 80s and early 90s (the book came out in 97, making it a bit dated, but much of the material is surprisingly relevant today). Easy reading, with the chapters being somewhat artificially broken, good for leisure time.

This is a great read for gamer developers in between reading other books about vector math, pixel shading, and what not. Sometimes, you need to take a look back and realize it's not all about how many polygons you can cram into your renderer or how many microseconds you can shave off of your graphics engine. This is supposed to be fun, man!There are some entertaining anecdotes and Herz's writing style is fresh, witting, stylish, and biting (reminds me of a female version of Neil Stephensen). She makes some observations and remarks that were humorous as much as they were dead-on. The analogy of Pac-man as the all-consuming capitalist icon, for example, send me rolling with laughter and earned me concerned looks from the other people in the library.Needless to say, this is not a documentary on the history of video games. You will not find a detailed timeline here of what company hired who and make what game that grossed how many copies. Blah, blah, blah... Frankly, who cares? There's enough of those already.

J.C. Herz may be able to articulate herself well, but the subject matter warrants more than what she offers. The content of the book is already well known my any video game scholar or enthusiast; she has no real new ideas or revelations. And there are other books, such as Kent's Ultimate History of Video Games, that are more suited for a person new to games. She is a gifted writer, however, and her use of metaphor is well done. I would not recommend this book to anyone except those that must read every video game book known to humanity.

Come on, guys. This was, at heart, a very well written and interesting book. The title may be misleading, but who cares? Apparently, most of the reviewers of this book were looking for a complete history of the video game and were disappointed to find an ethnography instead. Frankly, i like the ethnography more. Mixing in pieces of memoir, tech knowledge and good, old fashioned good writing (something hard to come by in any book having anything to do with video games), _Joystick Nation_ was incredibly enjoyable and informative. Ms. Herz is a very talented and versatile writer; unfortunately, her target audience is a very unforgiving one. Just remember, if you're looking for an in-depth analysis of the subtle electronic nuances of 'Frogger,' you're in the wrong place. If you're looking for a book not so much about video games, but more about the generation that these games have effected and in what ways they have, then definately read this book; you will not be disappointed, i assure you. And while we're at it, why don't we lay off the author's gender, okay boys? That fifth star is for all you Y-chromosome elitists out there.

I found this book lacking in some areas, overwritten in others (the chapter on Doom being my prime example), but still a fun read. From about 1978 to 1983, videogames captured public imagination (pardon the cliche) in the same way that Titanic and Michael Jordan do today. There is no explanation of just why this happened, just a timeline and chronicle. Restricting the scope of this book to one segment of videogames (arcades? computers? home videogame systems?) and explaining the why and not just the what and when, would have made this a better book.That said, this was still a good book, but it could have been more concise and consistent.

Excellently written with a personable style, a history of the video games written in the late 90's (Playstation had just come out!!) I loved the predictions for the future (no one is going to download games or use a console for social gaming). but all together a very enjoyable read.Delivered very promptly.