Bit by Bit: How Video Games Transformed Our World (Revised)

Video games have seemingly taken over our lives. Whereas gamers once constituted a small and largely male subculture, today 67 percent of American households play video games. The average gamer is now thirty-four years old and spends eight hours each week playingand there is a 40 percent chance this person is a woman.
In Bit by Bit, Andrew Ervin sets out to understand the explosive popularity of video games. He travels to government laboratories, junk shops, and arcades. He interviews scientists and game designers, both old and young. In charting the material and technological history of video games, from the 1950s to the present, he suggests that their appeal starts and ends with the sense of creativity they instill in gamers. As Ervin argues, games are art because they are beautiful, moving, and even politicaland because they turn players into artists themselves.
"

An acclaimed novelist and critic argues that video games are the most vital art form of our time
Video games have seemingly taken over our lives. Whereas gamers once constituted a small and largely male subculture, today 67 percent of American households play video games. The average gamer is now thirty-four years old and spends eight hours each week playing-and there is a 40 percent chance this person is a woman.
In Bit by Bit, Andrew Ervin sets out to understand the explosive popularity of video games. He travels to government laboratories, junk shops, and arcades. He interviews scientists and game designers, both old and young. In charting the material and technological history of video games, from the 1950s to the present, he suggests that their appeal starts and ends with the sense of creativity they instill in gamers. As Ervin argues, games can be art because they are beautiful, moving, and even political.

An acclaimed novelist and critic argues that video games are the most vital art form of our time
Video games have been around for decades, but only in recent years have they gone truly mainstream. Today, the majority of American households play video games, almost half of gamers are women, and professional video game tournaments attract more viewers than the World Series. Yet we still don't take games seriously, preferring to see them as little more than entertaining diversions, a means of making the commute go by a little more quickly.
In Bit by Bit, a blend of history, memoir, and reportage, Andrew Ervin sets out to understand the explosive popularity of this often maligned cultural form. He travels to government laboratories, junk shops, and art museums. He interviews scientists and hobbyists, critics and game makers. He installs a full-sized and obscenely loud Donkey Kong arcade cabinet in his basement, and plays enough Minecraft to suffer from "Minecraft syndrome," the effect of seeing objects in real life as poorly rendered blocks.
In exploring the material, technological, and business history of video games, from Tennis for Two (1958) to Pokemon Go and beyond, Ervin shows how games constitute a unique storytelling medium that offers us startling new ways to think about our lives and the world around us. And he argues that the best games, as defined by the aesthetic and even political ambitions of their creators, rise to the level of art. In this witty, searching book, Ervin explains the immense power of games--and why their reign will be long.