Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 353)

Trigger Happy
355
the Babylonian techno palace on Ibiza. Lately,
electricity has become the preferred fire—eminently
biddable and plastic—of the moderns. Electric light
freed us from the tyranny of the dark, hastening the
march of technology. The movies came along and
“broke our prisons asunder”: reality was recorded and
recreated anywhere, through light.
Then there was television: a tumultuous inferno of
electrons, arcanely marshaled and beaming more reality
into each lucky home. Through the gift of fire in its
latest incarnation, everyone was to have their horizons
expanded, their minds cultivated, their hopes nurtured.
That didn’t last. The fire became not an illuminating
flame but a cauterizing one, dulling the nerves. You can
shout at the television, but it will just keep on pumping
out its moronizing radiation. You can switch channels.
You can switch it off.
And now videogames—the television screen
reclaimed for our control. What potential—if
television replaced the log fire or the wireless as a
focus of domestic attention, the videogame reengineers
the television’s relentless blaze as a colorful zone of
play, a new world to explore, a rich and strange place
to pit your wits against the dazzling inventions of
others. The pixels dance to your tune. You’re not