Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 287)

Trigger Happy
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beating your friends and competing with your friends
than doing the same thing with computer-controlled
opponents.”
This is similar to the pleasure of playing doubles in
tennis, or playing a rubber of bridge; perhaps it is
closer, however, to that of board games, which have
always been advertised as social tools, fun for friends
and family. Indeed videogames might be seen in this
way as the logical next step from board games. The
history of the board game sees a gradual moving away
from the physical apparatus of the board, and an
increased focus of attention on the players themselves,
from the totally board-dependent games like chess and
checkers, to games such as Monopoly or Risk where a
lot of the action (alliance-forming and back-stabbing)
takes place off the board, to Trivial Pursuit, where the
board does little more than keep track of the score.
Videogames extrapolate from this trend ad infinitum,
because there is no physical stuff being moved around
at all, just patterns of photons.
But the social aspect of board games and certain
sports is multiplied innumerable times in the
burgeoning phenomenon of online videogaming. Now
there is a possibility of social play that is far greater
than at any time before in human history. Users can