Intellivision

“Fantastically researched and interestingly written.”—BoingBoing“[Boellstorff and Soderman] conducted a whopping 150 interviews with people involved in every aspect of Intellivision’s creation, life, and death. Plus, they dug through private and academic archives to unearth history and data that’s been forgotten for nearly 40 years. The authors wisely spend much of the book exploring this overlap between games and children’s disposable novelties—and how decisions made at this moment would harden the foundation for the gaming industry to come.”—Polygon“Boellstorff and Soderman note that the Intellivision system is often a footnote in home video game and computing histories, which usually focus on competing systems. In this well-researched book, they correct this oversight by illustrating the impact, design, marketing, expansion (and overexpansion), and decline of the Intellivision.”—Choice“As field officers, we often engage in skirmishes and battles. Boellstorff and Soderman superbly portray our elemental precursor in the nuanced context and depth of the broader games war.”—Bill Gillis, President, WF Gillis & Associates; former Marketing VP, Intellivision “Through a rich investigation of Intellivision, this book beautifully weaves together an attention to both the technical and the social components of producing computational gaming. A must read for all scholars of media.” —T. L. Taylor, Professor of Comparative Media Studies, MIT“Boellstorff and Soderman balance the heroic and the tragic stories of Intellivision’s business, technology, and people. Intellivision takes readers deep inside the confidential silos within the secretive toy industry of the 70s and 80s.”—Don Daglow, Director of Intellivision Game Development, Mattel

Tom Boellstorff is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of The Gay Archipelago, A Coincidence of Desires, and Coming of Age in Second Life.

Braxton Soderman is Associate Professor in the Department of Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of Against Flow- Video Games and the Flowing Subject (MIT Press).