Word: playing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...powerful element of fantasy in Space Invaders is the focus at which the computer technicians, the toy manufacturers and the games theorists seem likeliest to meet. Computer boffins at Manhattan's Rockefeller University play a game called Hunt the Wumpus, in which the Ph.D. devouring Wumpus is hunted through the perils of a 20-room cave. Computer language is flat and unresonant, and Hunt the Wumpus lacks a certain dash. But a toymaker may say, "Give me a way to display a Wumpus! Make him buzz and light up!" and next Christmas everyone may be going into debt...
...uncaring and without expression: "I -lose." Voice Chess Challenger costs a pricey $325, but you can pay that to have a couple of teeth filled and get conversation no better. The cost seems justified for a machine that knows and can teach some 40 book openings, can play itself, do problems, and at its "infinite search" level, can ponder one move for weeks or more. No batteries are needed; Challenger runs on house current...
Superstar 3000 is a not-so-cheap ($39.95) toy electric guitar with a sound synthesizer instead of strings and the ability to remember and play back tunes. The player presses touch-sensitive colored panels instead of frets; pressure at the top of the guitar neck produces a wah-wah or vibrato effect. But Superstar 3000 looks and feels like junk, and doesn't sound like much. Toy musical instruments have always been disappointing, and computer chips haven't changed things...
Simon, an appealing plate-shaped puzzle that flashes sequences of colored lights and accompanying musical notes, challenges players to repeat the sequences and gives losers the raspberry, began to change that. Adults, suffering from what one industry thinker called "play deprivation," have not only bought Simon and the competing computer toys like this year's play-alike Computer Perfection, but also are more or less cheerfully paying $40 to $50 for them. That shattered forever the $15 to $20 level the industry had considered its average. Now more than 100 different hand-held computer toys crowd store shelves...
...games are having an enormous impact on the ways in which children perceive themselves and their social realities. "You might almost say that childhood is tending toward a kind of autism and that children are seeking a way to stimulate themselves. With electronic games, they have it. You can play by your self. It's real exciting. You can carry the games anywhere. They look neat. They cause envy. They're expensive possessions so consequently there's a whole status relationship. 'I don't need anybody, I got my game...