{"product_id":"arcade-britannia-isbn-9780262544702","title":"Arcade Britannia","description":"\u003cb\u003eDiscover the rich, little-known history of the British amusement arcade from the 1800s to the present—with insights from industry professionals, plus rare archival photos!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Amusement arcades are an important part of British culture, yet discussions of them tend to be based on American models. Alan Meades, who spent his childhood happily playing in British seaside arcades, presents the history of the arcade from its origins in traveling fairs of the 1800s to the present. Drawing on firsthand accounts of industry members and archival sources, including rare photographs and trade publications, he tells the story of the first arcades, the people who made the machines, the rise of video games, and the legislative and economic challenges spurred by public fears of moral decline.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eArcade Britannia\u003c\/i\u003e highlights the differences between British and North American arcades, especially in terms of the complex relationship between gambling and amusements. He also underlines Britain’s role in introducing coin-operated technologies into Europe, as well as the industry’s close links to America and, especially, Japan. He shows how the British arcade is a product of centuries of public play, gambling, entrepreneurship, and mechanization. Examining the arcade’s history through technological, social, cultural, biographic, and legislative perspectives, he describes a pendulum shift between control and liberalization, as well as the continued efforts of concerned moralists to limit and regulate public play. Finally, he recounts the impact on the industry of legislative challenges that included vicious taxation, questions of whether copyright law applied to video-game code, and the peculiar moment when every arcade game in Britain was considered a cinema.Series Foreword vii\u003cbr\u003ePreface ix\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments xiii\u003cbr\u003e1 The British Arcade Versus the Mythic Arcade 1\u003cbr\u003e2 From Showfolk and Sanddancers to the 1960 Gaming Act 35\u003cbr\u003e3 Coin-Op Entrepreneurialism 67\u003cbr\u003e4 \"Get This Lousy Piece of Legislation Put Right\" 95\u003cbr\u003e5 Pings, Pongs, and Pioneers 121\u003cbr\u003e6 Copyright Defenders and the British Videogame Crash 145\u003cbr\u003e7 The Invader's Revenge 169\u003cbr\u003e8 Anti-Groups, Addiction, and the Arcade as Cinema 193\u003cbr\u003e9 SegaWorld, \u003ci\u003eStreet Fighter II\u003c\/i\u003e, and Exporting Games to Japan 203\u003cbr\u003e10 Gold Dust, 20p Fruit Machines, and Redemption 233\u003cbr\u003e11 A Historic Accident 245\u003cbr\u003eNotes 265\u003cbr\u003eReferences 291\u003cbr\u003eIndex 315“\u003ci\u003eArcade Britannia \u003c\/i\u003eoffers a nuanced, detailed, and invaluable account of how the arcade industry became a key feature of British leisure culture and has adjusted to survive the homogenizing tendencies of corporatization and globalization. It is highly recommended.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eProject Muse\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Alan Meades upends the dominant narrative of the mythic US arcade and offers a passionate, century-spanning history of the British arcades, painting them as a lively intersection of leisure, business, technology, and political struggles.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jaroslav Švelch, Assistant Professor at Charles University, Prague and author of \u003ci\u003eGaming the Iron Curtain\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Meades’s exhaustive detailing of the tentacular national and international British amusement arcade is without equal. \u003ci\u003eArcade Britannia\u003c\/i\u003e’s social and industrial history of the UK is a remarkable achievement.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Alex Wade, Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham City University and author of \u003ci\u003ePlayback: A Genealogy of 1980s British Videogames \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Pac-Man Principle: A User’s Guide to Capitalism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eArcade Britannia\u003c\/i\u003e is a sweeping and, at times, tender history of Britain's distinctive arcade and amusement history. Built from extensive interviews, this is a wonderful contribution to more localized understandings of video game and entertainment history.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Carly A. Kocurek, Professor of Digital Humanities and Illinois Institute of Technology, author of \u003ci\u003eCoin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eAlan Meades teaches the undergraduate and postgraduate Games Design courses at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eUnderstanding Counterplay in Videogames\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300485222629,"sku":"NP9780262544702","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262544702.jpg?v=1767721717","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/arcade-britannia-isbn-9780262544702","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}