Playing the Past

This is a book of 14 essays, that look at the cultural history of the video game industry, what makes video games popular, appealing to various people, psychological, and teaching elements of the games. it looks at early games of the 1970's and 80's, up to the 1990's and 2000's for home computer, console and arcade video games, as well as video game emulation. The book is divided into three sections, each of these sections deals with a different aspect of the past and games, such as games about the World Wars and ancient times, and why and how people discover games and continue to play. Each section is made up of essays from different authors, covering one of the three topics. Each essay is followed by 'Notes', 'Works Cited', and 'Games Cited', sections. The last section of the book tells about the 'Contributors' as well as the two main editors. This is followed by a index. There are also few gray-scale screenshots, box arts, and photographs.