(or, Buy My New Book)
Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System has been published and is now shipping from Amazon.com or your favorite bookseller. The book, which I wrote in collaboration with Nick Montfort, is about the relationship between the hardware design of the Atari VCS, some of the games that were created for it, and those games’ influence on later titles and… read more
The Atari Video Computer System
An accessible book about the Atari VCS as a platform. Co-authored with Nick Montfort. This book is available in digital or physical format. Buy from Amazon Racing the Beam is a study of the most important early videogame console, the Atari Video Computer System (also known as the Atari VCS or the Atari 2600). Through its main example, the book… read more
from the Software Studies Workshop
I attended the Software Studies Workshop at UCSD back in May, where I gave a talk on platform studies, the subject of a new book series co-edited by Nick Montfort and me. The first title in the series will be our book on the Atari VCS. The UCSD crew has put all the talks from the workshop online at YouTube.… read more
115 years of sports game adaptation
I have an interest in game adaptation, something that we normally think of only as it relates to film-to-game licensing. In our forthcoming book on the Atari VCS, Nick Montfort and I also discuss another kind of videogame adaptation that was once its primary form: from arcade coin-ops to home consoles.
This website in The Industry Standard's Top 25 B-to-Z List Blogs
The Industry Standard has compiled a list of the top 25 “B-to-Z List Blogs”… you know, the ones that come after the A-list. It seems that this humble site was selected as one. Quoth the Standard: This videogame theorist and assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology waxes between scholarly navel-gazing and witty media references. Ian really knows his… read more
My keynote presentation at the 2008 Game Developers Conference Education Summit
Note: this is a written version of the keynote address I gave at the Education Summit at the 2008 Game Developers Conference. The original presentation was extemporaneous and included evocative (rather than explanatory) slides. This version has been adapted from the presentation and the slides in a manner that will hopefully preserve the ideas fully while maintaining their original context:… read more
A glossy, wall mountable version of the first videogame easter egg
Nick and I are putting the final touches on our Atari VCS book. Part of that process includes creating figures for the book. Nick had the great suggestion of creating black and white illustrations instead of screen shots, akin to the kind you used to find in technical books and game guides of the early 1980s. The process is somewhat… read more
Links to my week of posts as guest editor
Last week I served as guest editor at popular games and game culture blog Kotaku All in all, I wrote 45 articles at Kotaku, which I’ve now linked below. I haven’t even tried to read all the comments on those threads though. I had a great time doing it and I’m really grateful that Brian Crecente extended the invitation.
Texas Instruments engineer announces a competition on the venerable 1979 game platform
If you browse this site a bit, you’ll see that I’m a big fan of the Atari VCS, a fervent enough one that I’ve programmed and written about the machine. Aaron Lanterman, a Georgia Tech Electrical and Computer Engineering colleague of mine, recently told me about Joe Zbiciak, a friend of his who has written an emulator for the Atari’s… read more
Who I am and what I do, in fewer words
Looking for a bio (long, short)?Looking for photos of me?Want my curriculum vitae?Trying to contact me? Ian Bogost is an author and game designer. He is Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he also holds an appointment in the Scheller College of Business. In addition, Bogost… read more