My name is William Hunter, and I run things here at The Dot Eaters, a website that chronicles the history and progression of video games from early pre-PONG systems up until the big video game crash of 1983-84.
My formative years were forged in the flames of 8-bit gaming systems of the late 70’s and early 80’s such as the Atari VCS (later renamed the 2600, but for me will always be the VCS), the ColecoVision, and early home computers like the venerable Commodore 64. For over 15 years I’ve developed the site to tell the stories of these games, systems, individuals and companies; researching and writing an extensive textual history, hunting down relevant images, recording videos, and all the other sundry things that go into maintaining a website dedicated to a subject of such breadth as video games.
From what started as a personal passion, The Dot Eaters has become today a trusted source of information about the history of video games. Many books on that topic have referenced The Dot Eaters in their research. Moreover, College and University faculty regularly check the website to look for relevant content. The Dot Eaters has an extensive section about the history of video games, called Bitstory, which is illustrated with many videos and images. It also has a blog called Updates, in which I write about how retro video games continue to resonate in the industry and with players today.
Testimonials:
Works that have cited or referenced The Dot Eaters:
Books:
Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time
Bill Loguidice, Matt Barton
CRC Press, 2012
The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga
Jimmy Maher
MIT Press, 2018
Attract Mode: The Rise and Fall of Coin-Op Arcade Games
Jamie Lendino
Steel Gear Press, 2020
Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation
Steve Swink
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2009
Handbook of Computer Game Studies
Edited by Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein
MIT Press, 2005
Technical Innovation in American History: An Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
Rosanne Welch, Peg A. Lamphier
ABC-CLIO, 2019
Game After: A Cultural Study of Video Game Afterlife
Raiford Guins
MIT Press Books, 2014
Biologically Inspired Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games
Darryl Charles
Medical Information Science Reference, 2008
Videogames
James Newman
Taylor & Francis, 2012
Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Pajares Tosca
Routledge, 2019
The Video Games Textbook
Dr. Brian J. Wardyga
CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019
Hollywood Gamers: Digital Convergence in the Film and Video Game Industries
Robert Alan Brookey
Indiana University Press, 2010
Boyhood in America: An Encyclopedia
Priscilla Ferguson Clement, Jacqueline S. Reinier
ABC-CLIO, 2001
Secrets of Video Game Consoles
Michael Hart
White Owl, 2022
The History of Video Games
Charlie Fish
White Owl, 2021
Anthrax: Bioterror as Fact and Fantasy
Philipp Sarasin
Harvard University Press, 2006
Encyclopedia of New Media
Steve Jones
SAGE Publications, 2003
Networking and Online Games: Understanding and Engineering Multiplayer Internet Games
Grenville Armitage, Mark Claypool, Philip Branch
The University of Michigan, 2006
Game On!: Gaming at the Library
Beth Gallaway
Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2009
From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media
Karen Collins
Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008
Beyond Edutainment: Exploring the Educational Potential of Computer Games
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
Lulu.com, 2013
Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse
David E. Brown
MIT Press, 2002
Electronic America
John W. Weier
Thompson Gale, 2007
Developing Online Games: An Insider’s Guide
Jessica Mulligan, Bridgette Patrovsky
New Riders, 2003
The Video Game Explosion: A History From Pong to Playstation and Beyond
Mark J. P. Wolf
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008
Virtual Reality
Lisa Yount
Lucent Books, 2004
The Internet: A Historical Encyclopedia
Chris Woodford
ABC-CLIO, 2005
Raspberry Pi Retro Gaming
Mark Frauenfelder, Ryan Bates
Apress, 2019
Alternate Reality Games and the Cusp of Digital Gameplay
Antero Garcia, Greg Niemeyer
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017
Robots That Kill: Deadly Machines and their Precursors in Myth, Folklore, Literature, Popular Culture and Reality
Judith A. Markowitz
McFarland, Inc., 2019
eCulture: cultural content in the digital age
Alfredo M. Ronchi
Springer, 2008
Newspapers:
The Wall Street Journal – A Videogame Fan’s Fantastic Find
Jason Fry
Dow Jones & Company, 2008
The Edmonton Journal – tangled web sidebar
Dave Alexander
Edmonton Journal Group, 2001
Magazines:
Edge
Website of the Month
Issue 99, July 2001
Future Publishing
Gameplay
#3, March 2005
ITC Publishing
Documentary Films and TV Series:
The Artists: The Untold Stories of the Pioneers Behind the Pixels
Written & Directed by Peter Mishara
CBC Original, 2018
Websites:
The History of Video Games
Alexander Rechsteiner
The Swiss National Museum, 2020
11 Times Video Games Led to Lawsuits
Rudie Obias
Mental Floss, 2014
Breaking Down Breakout: System and Level Design for Breakout-Style Games
Mark Nelson
Gamasutra, 2007
‘Spacewar!’ The story of the world’s first digital video game
Russell Brandom
The Verge, 2013
Some trivia on the first videogames
Mike Yamamoto
CNET, 2006
Intellivision: Gone But Not Forgotten
Cal Jeffrey
Techspot, 2021
Star Fighter
Frank Gasking
Games That Weren’t 64, 2017
The horrible, horrible history of Smurfs games
Chris Antista
GamesRadar, 2011
Console Bloodbath: Atari 2600 vs. Intellivision
TechRaptor, 2015
The Digital Antiquarian Volume 5: 1983
Jimmy Maher, 2015
10 Best Intellivision Games of All Time
Seb Santabarbara
RetroDodo, 2020
The Digital Antiquarian – The Laser Craze
Jimmy Maher, 2013
Old-Computers.com – Mattel Electronics Intellivision
Darek McDonald
University Syllabi, Academic Papers & Journals
Queen’s University Belfast
School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Games Programming, Philip Hanna, CSC2007
Violence in E-Rated Video Games
Kimberly M. Thompson, Kevin Haninger – Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University
The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2001
Thinking of the Children: The Failure of Violent Video Game Laws
Gregory Kenyota
Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal, Fordham University School of Law, 2008
Learning Through Games: Essential Features of an Educational Game
Kannan Amr
Department of Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation
Syracuse University, 2012
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law
Vanderbilt University, School of Law
The University of California, 2005
Biologically Inspired Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games
Darryl Charles, Colin Fyfe, Daniel Livingstone, Stephen McGlinchey
Medical Information Science Reference, 2008
Business Models and Strategies in the Video Game Industry: An Analysis of Activison-Blizzard and Electronic Arts
Ruri Lee
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2013
The Arrival of an Information Culture Society
Shoji Ishitsuka
Tokyo University of Information Sciences, Faculty of Informatics, Department of Information and Culture, 2007
The Urban Internet: Reality, Virtuality, and Urban Social Practice in Internet Cafés
Alison Powell
Joint Graduate Program in Communications & Culture
York University – Ryerson University, 2003
Video Game Music: Where It Came From, How It Is Being Used Today, and Where It Is Heading Tomorrow
Michael Cerrati
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technical Law, 2006
A Historical Overview of Games and the Spatial Sciences within the Learning Environment
Ben Johnston, William Cartwright
Taylor & Francis, 2000
Learning Worlds: Building Online Educational Simulations
Saginaw Valley State University
Thomas Fox McManus, Ph.D.
Computer Game Aesthetics and Media Studies
Rune Klevjer, University of Bergen
Paper presented at the 15th Nordic Conference on Media and Communication Research, Reykjavik, 2001
If You Fail, Try, Try Again: The Fate of New Legislation Curbing Minor’s Access to Violent and Sexually Explicit Video Games
Russell Morse
Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review, 2006
Gaming in Art: A Case Study of Two Examples of the Artistic Appropriation of Computer Games and the Mapping of Historical Trajectories of ‘Art Games’ Versus Mainstream Computer Games
Phillipa Jane Stalker
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2005
The Influences of Cognitive, Experiential and Habitual Factors in Online Games Playing
Laila Refiana Said
Faculty of Economics and Commerce Business School
The University of Western Australia, 2005
Bodies, Borders and Screens: The Techno-Organic Merger in Japan-American Popular Culture
Joseph Christopher Schaub
Department of English
University of Maryland, College Park, 1999
Copyrightability of Esports: Perspectives from the USA
Manvendra Singh Jadon
National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) University, Hyderabad, India, 2019
Oh No I’m Toast!: Mastering Video Game Secrets in Theory and in Practice
Kristina Lynn Drzaic
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 2007
Where did the idea of the website come from?
The beginnings of the The Dot Eaters came from a combination of my penchant for playing and collecting the classic video games I grew up on, and my viewing of Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet, a fantastic 1998 PBS documentary hosted by Robert X. Cringely. These events caused me to wonder about the history of these great games that I was recapturing from my youth. When I poked around the Internet, I found a couple of sites that dealt in the history of these games, but not really in the breadth of detail that I was looking for. So I decided to create my own website. That’s how it started. But what keeps me at it, aside from the comments I receive from you, Dear Reader, is the idea of the ever-expanding gulf between what was a videogame then and what is a videogame today, along with my personal experiences while crossing that chasm.
Reading the Sears Christmas Wish Book to tatters was one of my childhood rituals that I think most of us can identify with. My life as a gamer started this way. I was scoping through the Wish Book one day while riding home in the car with my mom and, in the most casual voice I could muster, posed the idea that perhaps I could get the Atari game here on this page? She replied with: “Well, maybe,” which was about a thousand times more positive of a response than what I was expecting. That Christmas, so probably in 1980, I got my Atari VCS. To make a long story short, after a couple of years I sold the Atari for about a 50 percent loss. Then I bought a ColecoVision, again sold that for a hefty loss and bought a Commodore VIC-20. Next came the vaunted C-64 before moving to the Amiga. Then I built my own gaming PC’s for years upon years before the day I lined up on a cold November morning outside of Best Buy with a couple hundred other maniacs on the launch day of the revolutionary Nintendo Wii in 2006. Along the way, I decided to start chronicling the history of the industry I was partaking in.
Ah, thanks for asking. Since starting the site to do that in 1998, an incredible amount of change has happened; in the online medium I was telling these stories in, the video game industry itself and in my own personal life. I now live in Toronto with a wonderful wife and two great kids, developing The Dot Eaters on my trusty Mac. It looks a bit different than the model of Macintosh computers that came out the year the site first went online…
I hope you’ll enjoy the website! Eventually I plan to progress the Bitstory section into the “modern” era of gaming, so if you have a system or game you’d like profiled, feel free to drop me a line from the Contact Us page. For now, do come back soon to check out the latest blog posts and articles.
William