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Abstract:

While video games have been analyzed in comparison to other new media forms by scholars like Lev Manovich, and to older media like novels and plays by scholars like Janet Murray and Brenda Laurel, few studies have examined the influence of older toys on video games. Despite this neglect, however, the connections between older toys and video games point to several important issues in hurnanities-based game studies, including those that investigate the place of game studies in academia and the archiving and preservation of games. By connecting video games to a variety of nonelectronic predecessors, this article raises several questions linked to video game classification, the hybridity of video games, and the problems that hybrid forms must negotiate. Toward this end, we specifically address movable books and toy theaters in relation to video games like Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (2004) to show how video games both draw on and change earlier interactive entertainment formats. Overall, this article explicates the relationship between games and older forms like movable books to show how comparative studies of older forms can elucidate and inform current scholarship.