Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 281)

Trigger Happy
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refining them. They are exactly those skills exercised
by modern target videogames such as Time Crisis 2.
Games of chance, meanwhile, seem to have
originated from a belief that divine will could be
glimpsed through seemingly random machinations; the
I Ching, for example, is a book of wisdom in which
hexagrams are consulted according to a random
sequence of twig manipulations. But most “games of
chance” are not totally aleatory: a player in an ancient
game such as backgammon or dominoes must still use
skill to decide which piece to play next, or where to put
the counter. Over time, these simple forms of game
seem to have evolved gradually so as to make more
long-term cognitive demands of the player. Skill is
transmuted into strategy.
“In the history of civilization,” writes game
historian Brian Sutton-Smith, “games of strategy seem
to have emerged when societies increased in
complexity to such an extent that there was a need for
diplomacy and strategic warfare.” He describes one of
the earliest examples: mancala, or wari, which was an
ancient Egyptian strategy game. Each player controls a
number of counters on the board, and the game
involves using numerical and strategic judgment to
capture the opponent’s pieces. Mancala is clearly a