starcade is a game show that aired from 1982 to 1984. contestants compete for scores in the arcade games of their day, the grand prize a cabinet (usually of a lesser game) of their own. the show is a perfect snapshot of the time before the nintendo entertainment system, when the videogame was not an experience of the home as much as it was a social experience, or a social space, that we call the arcade. it’s a period from which we seem to retain fairly little written history.
whole episodes of starcade are online for the watching. slut and i have made a daily ritual of them. what most fascinates me is the way people communicate about games on the show: these days, we have an existing vocabulary for describing games, mostly in terms of other games that they’re similiar to, which comes from games “journalists,” who regurgitate them, in turn, from marketers. and it feels like there’s little discussion of games that tries to escape what is, essentially, marketing-speak.
this language didn’t exist when starcade was filmed. people had to describe games in terms they already understood, using familiar experiences as metaphors. listening to them now, they convey much more about the speaker’s experience of a game than most videogames writing today, which is written in the vocabulary of marketers and designed to tell us as little as possible. the show is fast and fascinating, and host geoff edwards is a saucy customer. i suggest digging right in.
also worthy of mentioning: patrick and dan of eegra have recorded another episode of their podcast. i’ll probably keep posting about these for a few more episodes, just so i can be sure you’re all listening. i think the discussion is sharp and dan and patrick have put a lot of effort into trimming the fat from their show; episode three is half the length of their earlier podcasts.
i think patrick really articulates what’s so appealling about spelunky and other procedurally-generated adventure games, and i like the conversation about games that “elicit rhythms,” like donkey konga and rez, as opposed to “rhythm games” that are essentially simon says.
and episode sixty of topcast (“this old pinball”) interviews michael schiess, the founder of the lucky juju pinball museum, my absolute favorite place in the world. while the podcast is clearly intended for an audience who collects and renovates tables, i nevertheless found the history of lucky juju fascinating.
gosh, i nearly forgot: cherished friend, games journalist andrew adams, just started a new blog of personal anecdotes and little discoveries dug up while trawling computer games history. also: some funny jokes, maybe?
a last note: i don’t often talk about the guildhall at southern methodist university, though bored knows i could. you remember them: the school that cheated me out of a lot of money and refused me the education i thought i was paying for. well, i bring them up because, not content with all the money they’ve stolen already, they’re now trying to hustle me for more – which, from what i understand, is pretty typical of what’s called “higher education” in these parts. nevertheless, i feel obliged to reiterate, for the sake of anyone who might be considering attending the guildhall at southern methodist university, that they took my money and gave me a horrible experience and little else. let that go on the record we call the internet.
8 comments
What sort of grounds do they have? You didn’t do anything like burn anything to the ground or your way out, DID YOU?
why didn’t i think of that at the time?
also I’d wager starcade is not a very good representation of arcade culture because of the timer and emphasis on playing for score. high score tables would get wiped at the end of every night when the power was shut off so they were ultimately not very valuable outside of competition venues.
Most often people would play for survival (with score being tied to extends) or for progress since it was much easier to remember “made it to the eighth key” than a specific score. The timer on starcade eliminates this. Prior to caravan mode play was the reward for expertise in play, which is a pretty nice feedback system if you can manage it.
its a good representation of people playing forgotten games together!
I remember a time, watching a Canadian game show (whose name I cannot recall) and not just being excited about gaming but enthralled. Actually into it. Nowadays I’d be lucky if I can work up the willpower to pirate a game, let alone play it when it’s finished downloading.
Something you touched on was the current state of games journalism. There is a certain point in which expanding on an emotion in 6 paragraphs is a chore, not a duty, and it’s dilator of the raw emotions you’d feel playing the game anyways. I’d consider it doubly offensive when the person’s experience is stated as fact (with numbers to boot).
There’s a trend of reviews and hands-on experiences describe what could be best explained as post-emotivism.
It’s not that the same experiences don’t exist as they did back then, they’ve compounded. But there is a new walk of shame each game goes through before being accepted and it a far reach from a time in the 80’s and 90’s (a time I can remember) when gaming was, on the whole, an experience, not a pick-and-choose comparison free-for-all.
I can see a clear divide between the gaming community now and then. And I think one relic of the old times is the arcade. There’s nothing quite like it. LAN parties and Guitar Hero parties notwithstanding. Past the turn of the century, I don’t remember another point in my life when overweight kids would bounce on DDR machines with Asian masters, or when a crowd would gather around a Galaga cabinet and gawk at the proud owner of a new high score. Then there’s now, a period where the Internet knows all and everything is a Halo clone. Every review The gaming world is more high maintenance than ever, and is one of the reasons I believe independent gaming is so important. And because cactus is the only one making nude space games about homicide-inducing gases.
/thesis
Bit of a long shot, but are you thinking of Video & Arcade Top 10, WNF?
Yes, that’s it! Sweet, sweet memories.
You can go wrong with old-school games. I am sorry but with all due respect to Nick Arcade and all of that. Starcade is the FIRST & ONLY ARCADE GAME SHOW! I have written to the producers of the show and they are really super nice. Thanks auntie for your nice comments about the show! Peace!
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