Impact of High Scores On The Media
According to the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, "high-score" attempts enjoyed as much press coverage as any other video-game-related topic reported in the media during the 1982–1985 period. Though the media was often focused on the amazing growth of the video game industry, it was equally as fascinated with the human side of gaming, as typified by the "player vs machine" showdowns that led to new world record high scores set on nearly a daily basis. In fact, Twin Galaxies reports that during that early era it was not unusual for there to be multiple new world records reported in the media on a single day. To illustrate the media's love for the high-score phenomenon, here is a brief sampling of news stories reproduced from the following news resources:
- Record try aborted in video game - Arizona Republic, March 9, 1982
- 1-token spree sets record at video game - Charlotte News, Charlotte, NC, September 9, 1982
- Man could crunch U.S. Pac-Man record - Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, July 17, 1982
- Video game enthusiast gets highest score ever - Kansas City Times, August 18, 1982
- Video champ blasts his way into record book - San Francisco Examiner, September 6, 1982
- Resident saves earth, claims world record - Chapel Hill News, Chapel Hill, NC, November 10, 1982
- Texas gamer works toward high score - Abilene Reporter-News, Abilene, TX, November 12, 1982
- Central student one to beat playing Defender - Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne, WY, December 18, 1982
- Video game champ gets recognition - St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, FL, December 31, 1982
- Contests offer players tokens, recognition - Dallas Morning News, January 15, 1983
- Video Game champion vows he'll never play again - Syracuse Herald-Journal, January 17, 1983
- Videogame records - USA Today, April 22, 1983
- Pac-Man Record? - Washington Post, Washington D.C., May 26, 1983
- Teenager going for video game record - Dublin Courier-Herald, Dublin, GA, June 22, 1983
- Records, like promises, are not always meant to be broken - USA Today, July 7, 1983
- Competitors' lives filled with joysticks - Wilmington Morning Star, Wilmington, NC, June 30, 1984
Read more about this topic: Twin Galaxies
Famous quotes containing the words impact of, impact, high, scores and/or media:
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls
Married impossible men?
Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,
And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“Few white citizens are acquainted with blacks other than those projected by the media and the so—called educational system, which is nothing more than a system of rewards and punishments based upon one’s ability to pledge loyalty oaths to Anglo culture. The media and the “educational system” are the prime sources of racism in the United States.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)