TY - JOUR
T1 - The uncredited
T2 - Work, women, and the making of the U.S. computer game industry
AU - Nooney, Laine
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - In the fall of 1980, the remote, rural Gold Rush town of Oakhurst, California, became home to Sierra On-Line, a computer game manufacturer that emerged as one of the most successful and iconic game companies of the 1980s and 1990s. Forty years later, Sierra On-Line is long gone from Oakhurst, but its operational and labor infrastructure remain strangely present - a civic palimpsest composed of repurposed buildings, regional archives, local memorials, and the frayingmemories of its citizens. This article explores the undocumented dimensions of the computer game industry's supply chain during the final decades of the twentieth century, focusing on the emotional labor and maintenance work involved in sales, customer service, and technical support. Unfolding in three scenes - each pinned to a financial crash, each oriented to the experience of a different female employee - the article traces the material and affective networks that made gaming possible and computers thinkable as machines of everyday life in the late twentieth-century United States.
AB - In the fall of 1980, the remote, rural Gold Rush town of Oakhurst, California, became home to Sierra On-Line, a computer game manufacturer that emerged as one of the most successful and iconic game companies of the 1980s and 1990s. Forty years later, Sierra On-Line is long gone from Oakhurst, but its operational and labor infrastructure remain strangely present - a civic palimpsest composed of repurposed buildings, regional archives, local memorials, and the frayingmemories of its citizens. This article explores the undocumented dimensions of the computer game industry's supply chain during the final decades of the twentieth century, focusing on the emotional labor and maintenance work involved in sales, customer service, and technical support. Unfolding in three scenes - each pinned to a financial crash, each oriented to the experience of a different female employee - the article traces the material and affective networks that made gaming possible and computers thinkable as machines of everyday life in the late twentieth-century United States.
KW - Computer games
KW - Industry studies
KW - Labor history
KW - Sierra On-Line
KW - Video games
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086567458&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85086567458&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1525/fmh.2020.6.1.119
DO - 10.1525/fmh.2020.6.1.119
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85086567458
SN - 2373-7492
VL - 6
SP - 119
EP - 146
JO - Feminist Media Histories
JF - Feminist Media Histories
IS - 1
ER -