On the media practice of highscoring

This article aims to demonstrate that the introduction of highscores resulted in a distinct way of playing videogames that also provides a useful figure to understand socioeconomic developments of the 1980s. Using the theoretical concept of media practice it describes how highscoring has emerged fro...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Clemens Reisner
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2016-12-01
Series:Cogent Arts & Humanities
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2016.1210277
Description
Summary:This article aims to demonstrate that the introduction of highscores resulted in a distinct way of playing videogames that also provides a useful figure to understand socioeconomic developments of the 1980s. Using the theoretical concept of media practice it describes how highscoring has emerged from the infrastructural prerequisites of arcade gaming. The article will furthermore demonstrate that elements of highscoring can also be found in other social domains such as fitness and the financial economy where during the 1980s computer technology increasingly was employed. The article hence aims at delineating highscoring as a media practice that gives us a framework to look at similar developments in other social domains during the same time and is as such part of the genealogy of gamification.
ISSN:2331-1983