Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy User Manual
Page 10
Trigger Happy
12
But nothing could be certain in the great
evolutionary game. Some seemingly successful species
found it impossible to adapt swiftly enough to
catastrophic changes in the environment, and died out.
They were the dinosaurs. (By copying their “code” and
letting it gestate under laboratory conditions, however,
we can actually bring these fossils to life again, and let
them roam happy, if confused, in virtual amusement
parks.)
Nor was this evolution a gradual and inexorable
expansion of possibilities and types. There seems to be
no final goal to the random machinations of Nature.
Some species of game, for example, turned at certain
points down evolutionary blind alleys and failed to
develop, concentrating instead, like the peacock, on
attracting partners with ever more lurid visual displays.
Other species merged, pooling resources and erasing
previous distinctions to become the great games that we
know and love.
The narrative of these manifold splittings and
fusings, this world-historical struggle of the will
encoded in our deepest selves, is not a mere just-so
story for the young. For through the noble history of
videogame species, with due homage made to the great
examples that have paved the way for us, the heroic