Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy User Manual
Page 9
Trigger Happy
11
(in geological terms) videogames crawled out on to the
shore, developed rudimentary eyes and legs, and
gradually began to conquer Earth.
Biologically speaking, early videogames were, as
they are today, radically exogamous—that is to say,
they did not replicate by breeding with each other, but
with “humans,” a preexisting carbon-based life form
whose purpose was, and still is, unknown but seemingly
providential. If the videogame managed to impart
particularly intense pleasure to a parasitic human
during the reproductive act, the chances of its offspring
surviving were enhanced. Obviously, videogames were
programmed by Nature to be as promiscuous as
possible: the more humans impregnated with code, the
more likely that some of the next generation would
survive to breed in their turn. The work of such genetic
programming persists in the primeval substratum even
of modern, sophisticated videogame civilization.
Over this vast meander of time, the pressures
of adapting to varied conditions prompted the
formation of different genera and species of
organism with different habitats, social structures
and breeding strategies. The fittest survived.