Dragon's Lair and the Fantasy of Interactivity

MJ Clarke

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Hardback

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English

Lexington Books
21 June 2022

Media studies; Computer games: strategy guides; Digital animation; Digital video: professional

Perhaps no arcade game is so nostalgically remembered, yet so critically bemoaned, as Dragon’s Lair. A bit of a technological neanderthal, the game implemented a unique combination of videogame components and home video replay, garnering great popular media and user attention in a moment of contracted economic returns and popularity for the videogame arcade business. But subsequently, writers and critics have cast the game aside as a cautionary tale of bad game design. In Dragon’s Lair and the Fantasy of Interactivity, MJ Clarke revives Dragon’s Lair as a fascinating textual experiment interlaced with powerful industrial strategies, institutional discourse, and textual desires around key notions of interactivity and fantasy. Constructing a multifaceted historical study of the game that considers its design, its makers, its recording medium, and its in-game imagery, Clarke suggests that the more appropriate metaphor for Dragon’s Lair is not that of a neanderthal, but a socio-technical network, infusing and advancing debates about the production and consumption of new screen technologies. Far from being the gaming failure posited by evolutionary-minded lay critics, Clarke argues, Dragon’s Lair offers a fascinating provisional solution to still-unsettled questions about screen media.

By: MJ Clarke
Imprint: Lexington Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 227mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 413g
ISBN: 9781793636034
ISBN 10: 1793636036
Pages: 150
Publication Date: 21 June 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Dragon's Lair: The Hardware Chapter 2: Dragon's Lair: The Business Chapter 3: Dragon's Lair: The Disc Chapter 4: Dragon's Lair: The Fantasy References About the Author

MJ Clarke is associate professor in TV, film, and media studies at California State University, Los Angeles.

Reviews for Dragon's Lair and the Fantasy of Interactivity

Vibrant prose, detailed research, and a holistic methodology make Clarke’s Dragon’s Lair and the Fantasy of Interactivity a fascinating look at a game that became an iconic pinnacle of both a technology and a genre of video games, laserdisc games, and led to a discussion of the very nature of interactivity. For a tour of Dragon’s Lair, one cannot find a better guide. -- Mark J. P. Wolf, Concordia University Wisconsin