- Steven Poole

Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Videogames

By Steven Poole

Ground-breaking account of the cultural history and impact of videogames, from Pong and Space Invaders to Tomb Raider and Tekken.

Videogames are here to stay. It is now more than a quarter of a century since the appearance of the first commercially available videogame, Pong. Now the profits on blockbuster games are measured in terms of the first weekend’s millions, like those of mass-market films. Sony estimates that nearly 1 in 5 UK households has a Playstation; worldwide sales of its console have topped 30 million. Videogame design is now the subject of accredited BSc degrees at universities. The market domination by British based videogame companies is one of the success stories of the decade.

Yet videogames are still seen as a compromised art-form, derivative at best, actively harmful at worst. In Trigger Happy, Steven Poole asks the question: If this is an artform, what kind of an artform is it? Where did it come from, and where is it going?

Author: Steven Poole
Format: Paperback
Release Date: 05 Mar 2001
Pages: 256
ISBN: 978-1-84115-121-2
Steven Poole was born in London in 1972, and read English at Cambridge. He writes for the Guardian, the Independent and the Times Literary Supplement, and has also worked as a composer for television and short film. In his spare time he saves the planet from alien invasion and plays chess.