Peep-boxes to Pixels: An Alternative History of Video Game Space

“Peep-boxes to Pixels” offers an alternative cross-section of gaming history. Focusing on the dichotomous profiles of the video game arcade in the US and in Japan, the paper traces various cultural and technological planes as they scroll amongst each other in forming the collective zone we call an arcade today. This metaphor I extend by appropriating into my discourse a term that video games appropriated from astronomy: parallax. Of particular interest in this alternative history are the Dutch peep-boxes which, when introduced to Japan and given a pay-per-play cost, can be thought of as protoarcade games. However, these objects are generally mentioned in regards to a history of cinema. Why not a history of games? Certainly, peep-boxes, pointillism, penny arcades, pinball machines, pachinko and the pixels of Pac-man begin to interrelate as parallax once one weaves together the pedigree of their respective spaces. This paper asks a lot of questions. What does the respawning of fetishistic game historians leave behind? What cultural remnants have been blasted right past? What framework(s) made their debut in Japan so successful, and why should or shouldn't we be surprised that the Japanese arcade scene is so much more informed and vibrant than ours? (It is.) In looking at a history somewhat glitched and incongruent with the common offerings, I hope a more cosmopolitan cerebration may produce more interesting game content and more compelling places to play. The future of play may lie in the past. Author