Game Over (Sheff book)
.jpg) Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | David Sheff |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Random House, Inc. (New York) |
Publication date | 1993 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Hardcover, paperback |
| Pages | 445 (First edition, including index) |
| ISBN | 0-679-40469-4 |
| OCLC | 26214063 |
| 338.7/617948/0952 20 | |
| LC Class | HD9993.E454 N577 1993 |
Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children is a non-fiction book written by David Sheff and published by Random House, New York in 1993.
Overview
The book details the modern history of Nintendo Company, Limited and its rise to become the most powerful electronic gaming company in the world as of 1993. The book also provides a history of the worldwide electronic gaming industry as a whole from the 1960s to the 1990s.[1][2]
Although bearing a very specific title, the book is fairly neutral; it mainly relates the history of the company while looking at both the positives and negatives of their business practices.[3] Sheff does suggest that many of Nintendo's successes are attributable to what reviewer James Fallows termed "the Japanese system’s tolerance for monopoly".[4] Sheff also defends the accuracy of the "enslaved your children" portion of the subtitle, stating that "kids will play the games compulsively and non-stop".[5]
The book is notable in that the author extensively interviewed numerous established figures in the industry, such as Howard Lincoln, Nolan Bushnell, Shigeru Miyamoto (misspelled as "Sigeru" in the book), Alexey Pajitnov, and others, including people who spoke anonymously. This level of access to major figures in Nintendo's history, which US Gamer described as "unprecedented", made Game Over "the definitive work" which was referenced by nearly all other subsequent books and articles about Nintendo's history.[6] Portions of the book were originally published in San Francisco Focus, Men's Life, Rolling Stone, and Playboy magazines.[citation needed]
Revisions
Since its initial publication, Game Over has been reprinted under many different titles, although usually retaining the term "Game Over" somewhere in the title. One example is Game Over: Nintendo's Battle to Dominate Videogames.
Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World, an edition published by Vintage Press in 1994,[7] contains a new foreword written by author David Sheff pertaining to the controversy over video game content in the early 1990s.
In 1999, a revised edition of the book titled Game Over: Press Start to Continue – The Maturing of Mario (referencing Nintendo's famous character Mario) was released. Among error corrections, photographs and new chapters written by Andy Eddy were added.[8]
An edited version was printed by Coronet Books and given away free with the May 1999 issue of Arcade magazine.
References
- ^ Coates, James (1993-05-18). "How Super Mario conquered America". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
- ^ Juster, Scott (2012-02-23). "'Game Over': A Look at Nintendo's Past and Future". PopMatters. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
- ^ Levy, Steven (1993-07-18). "Hey, It's More Than a Game". The New York Times Book Review. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
- ^ Fallows, James (1994-03-24). "The Computer Wars". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
- ^ Corr, O. Casey (1993-07-18). "Nintendo: From Collapse to Empire". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
- ^ Parish, Jeremy. "Essential Reading: 'I Am Error' Brings New Insight to the History of the NES". US Gamer. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
- ^ etersen, Clarence (1994-07-17). "Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World, by David Sheff". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
- ^ "Talking Game Over: IGN64 freelancer Dexter Sy chats with industry Veteran Andy Eddy about his updates to Game Over". IGN. 1999-09-09. Retrieved 2015-11-21.