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I spent much of this weekend digging in on some Electrohome G07 monitor chassis repair. I have a bunch of games in the bavacade that use this monitor chassis to power the glorious CRT tubes for these 1980s miracles.
Image of G07 chassis with yoke connector
All told I have at least 7 cabinets that have a G07 chassis. There may be more, but I’m not sure what chassis all my cocktails are using given I never checked, and there are four total: Rally-X, Pleaides, Galaxian, and Moon Cresta.* Along with the Wells Gardner K4600 (at least 6 cabinets have this chassis) the G07 is the most common in the bavacade. That means part of making this hobby sustainable is figuring out how to work on these models given chassis repairs are a big part of keeping games online. I’ve slowly been getting better, but I remain very much an amateur. But even hacks like me have their moments, and this week was one of them. I got two of the three non-working G07s running again, leaving me with just one non-working chassis that I can use as a donor chassis for parts given all the games with G07s are now fully operational. YES!
More detailed image of a G07 chassis
Trusting the process means a lot of troubleshooting, and this weekend I was pretty happy to have committed a bit more and pushing myself to do more extensive diagnostic testing of the various components for things like resistance readings, diode readings, checking if transistors are good, voltage test points, etc. All of this was Greek to me just a couple of years ago, so starting to get my head around this basic troubleshooting before replacing anything is long overdue and pretty rewarding.
The multimeter has proven to be the most indispensable tool of them all
I already talked about the first successful G07 repair this week in my “bavacade Repair log from 6-29-2023,” noting “I was able to repair the Condor G07 chassis that was dead by doing a cap kit, swapping out a new B+ filter cap as well as a horizontal width coil.” The cap kit was done almost a year ago, but I never got it working. Turns out the recent replacement of the B+ filter cap is what brought it back to life. The horizontal width coil was broken, so I soldered a newer one off one of the other two non-working G07 chassis, figuring better to replace the broken one while the board was out. When I re-installed the chassis in Condor it worked, but there was a slight undulation that was annoying me. So, as a test, I tried it in Robotron and the waviness was gone and it worked perfectly, so that’s where it lives right now.
This means I needed to repair one of the other two chassis for Condor, and then I was golden. The two G07 chassis I had both blew the F901 fuses (2.25 AMP @ 250V ) next to the B+ capacitor, which is the biggest capacitor on the board. After discharging the B+ filter,† I replaced the fuses, which needed to be soldered in, and then tested the G07 that came from Pole Position (I defaulted to this one because I had desoldered the horizontal width coil from the other chassis for the first fix). Initially I thought the Pole Position chassis had an issue with the flyback and/or the horizontal output transistor (HOT) given the symptoms when it originally occurred a few weeks back. But after re-soldering the fuse and re-installing in Robotron to confirm as much, there was a total vertical collapse of the heart 
G07 chassis with vertical collapse
That’s a new one, but I’ve read about it on forum posts innumerable times. I figured I’d have to deal with it sooner or later, so I embraced the challenge to broaden my experience—learning is painful! OK, so the first thing I did was look at some of the basic troubleshooting for this, and from what I read it is possibly linked to a few different things, such as an open circuit somewhere, which requires testing each resistor in the 400 series circuit to ensure there are no infinite (OL) ohm readings. It’s also been linked to the x401 and/or X402 trasnsitors, so you wanna check the values there. I’ve read a few cases where the IC501 chip was bad and needs to be replaced, but that seems less likely. That said, the following G07 repair video did have that issue, and it does a great job walking you through common troubleshooting as well as demonstrating how to test the transistors, which was very helpful:
I tested the transistors, and they were both reading at .570, which seems normal. I then tested all the 400 series resistors and some were lower than the specs, but none were open, so not sure they are the issue. I also compared the results on a working G07 and they were fairly similar, here are the results I got for this chassis:
FR401: 69 Ohm
R401: 99 Ohm
R402: 18K Ohm
R403: 3.3K Ohm
R404: 4K Ohm
R405: 12K Ohm
R406: Vertical linearity trim pot
R407: 4.2K Ohm
R408: vertical Height trim pot
R409: 51 Ohm
R410: 6.4 Ohm
R411: 13K Ohm
R412: 13.5K Ohm
R413: 580 Ohm
R414: 3.1K Ohm
R415: 2.6K Ohm
R416: 8K Ohm
R417: 67 Ohm
R418: 1.3K Ohm
R419: 1.9K Ohm
R420: 6.6 Ohm
R421: 5.5K Ohm
R423: 2.4 K Ohm
Some of the readings are low, particularly for R404, R411, R412, R416, R417,R421, and R423, but I got similar low values for another chassis that works just fine, so I “resisted” replacing any resistors just yet given I didn’t find any open circuits, just issues with value range (assuming a low resistor value would not cause the total collapse, but I’m not positive on this). The next test would be the IC501 chip, but I was not entirely sure how to test this chip, still a blindspot for me, and I don’t have a spare regardless, so I let that sit.
There could also be an issue with soldering joints at the yoke connectors on the board but the solder was fine, but still might reflow those. Beyond that, I tested the resistors for R406 and R408 which adjust the vertical height and linearity, and they adjusting values accordingly, so I was hitting a brick wall. I even checked the diodes in the 400 circuit, but all seemed good.
The dark splotch on the flyback is where it burst and started leaking
At this point I decided to step away from the Pole Position chassis, and turn to the other one that wasn’t working. First thing was desolder the horizontal width coil from the chassis I just abandoned and solder it to this one. I already added the new F901 fuse, so with the width coil added and the fuse in I tested it out. The last time it had not powered on at all, whereas this time it powered on and immediately there was smoke coming out of the flyback. It had blown. This, oddly, was very reassuring because at least I knew exactly where the issue was, and I also had an extra flyback that worked. So, I replaced the flyback and tested the game again and voilà this time it worked perfectly, whew! All the work on the other one with no results but a lot of learning, and this one was a simple replacement part swap, I’ll take it every time.
I need another width coil and a working flyback, but once I have them I might even take another shot at the last non-working G07, but given no games are effected I can finally move on to the last chassis repair I need to do, the K4600 for the Centuri Challenger, so until then!
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*I’ve yet to dismantle a cocktail cabinet, but that task will probably be coming soon given some work needed on my Pleiades cocktail cabinet, I don’t trust the adjustable metal legs on that game and want to get them properly lubricated and adjust with the write screws.
† Capacitors are designed to hold a charge, and when you blow the F901 fuse that charge has nowhere to go, which makes these big capacitor dangerous to the touch. Whenever removing this board do not grab it from underneath before discharging the G07 cap. You can do this by using an insulated screw driver that is connected to a ground via an alligator clip to ensure the charge has somewhere to go. To ground it, make sure the screw driver touches the + and – posts, read more on this on the KLOV forums here.
This is just a quick update to document some of the work happening recently in the bavacade. It has a been a bit of catch as catch can given how busy the last month has been with the Reclaim open conference the and coming virtual event in July. That said, I’ve been sneaking in work here and there in the mornings, and as usual it adds up. I already blogged about the Yie-Ar Kung-fu custom cabinet project, and will be a summer long endeavor, but it’s very exciting. I also documented some of my work a couple of week’s ago testing various parts I bought in the US in the “Arcade Therapy” post, so things are definitely moving along.
More recently I have been testing some spare boards I have, namely a spare Make Trax board as well as spare Super Cobra board. This was also part of my attempt to start organizing all my parts and spares in the basement and get some semblance of order. I find testing and labeling when things worked saves me a ton of time, and some of the metadata on the boxes noted that these boards were questions marks. Also, I was looking to test a Crush Roller board in Make Trax I was sure I’d bought and brought to Italy over, but turns out I am either delusional or simply left it in Fredericksburg. Either way, because I’m obsessed I bought another Crush Roller board I found for a decent price in Germany along with a spare Moon Cresta board. The latter board is for the cocktail cabinet in Zach Davis is minding for me in Portland, Oregon, and I want to install and test the high score save kit on this one before shipping it back once I am in New Orleans next month.
The mint Moon Cresta Cocktail machine in residence at Cast Iron Coding’s HQ
Anyway, back to the spare Make Trax and Super Cobra boards. The Make Trax spare works, but the sound is noisy. It’s as if the sound pot is not working correctly and there it is too loud and scratchy, so will need to track that down a new potentiometer (pot) and see if tracing the audio gives me any insight. This board will be the first real PCB work (besides my botched Stargate repair attempts) I’ve attempted in earnest, and I’m hopeful it’s the start of some basic board work.
Stargate Yellow Screen of Death
If it goes well, the second project will be Super Cobra, which has an issue with the high score save kit. There are weird special characters in the high score save (HSS) kit and free play is not working. When I substituted the original roms—this board has several ROMs removed given they are programmed on the HSS kit—and Z80 chip from the working board the special characters went away. That said, there was then a strange rebooting issue with the game that did not happen with HSS kit in, so I’m going to buy new chips and burn the Super Cobra roms (a first for me). After that, I’ll try to track down the random rebooting issue, which is definitely an issue I can isolate to that board, should be fun!
Shot of Super Cobra with weird special characters in high score
As far as other work, I am making headway on monitor chassis repair. I had the spare Hanterex Polo in Cheyenne sent in for diagnosis given the original is stuck in the US on what’s shaping up to be an almost a 6-month wait, which I’m not thrilled about. I’ll keep pushing on the US repair, but in the meantime if the spare board is fixed here in Italy I can finally get this game back online. If that happens, then I’m just one G07 chassis and one K4600 chassis away from having everything running. I was able to repair the Condor G07 chassis that was dead by doing a cap kit, swapping out a new B+ filter cap as well as a horizontal width coil, and the chassis is working pretty well, but there’s a slight undulating wave that Tommaso tells me is good enough, but it’s annoying me, so I do think I need to replace all the adjustment pots, especially for vertical linearity and vertical hold.
In fact, I was certain I bought spare G07 pots, but I can’t find them for the life of me (part of the quest for order undertaken this week), so I’ve been parting out one of my extra, non-working G07 chassis. I’m also waiting on some 1.25 AMP fuses that should come today to try and get the chassis that came out of Pole Position working again. I think this chassis has either a bad flyback or a bad voltage regulator given there has been a recent cap kit done already. I might also need to swap the B+ filter cap. If that works, it will be put in Robotron, which leaves only the K4600 chassis for Challenger (I put Challenger‘s 4600 into Venture to get that game up and running) to repair. I’m not sure what is up there cause I swapped flyback and there was a recent cap kit, so a bit perplexed, but hopefully we some poking around and testing that will be the final piece of the puzzle. This is where the chorus sings, “Hope springs eternal in the bava heart.”
Cracks in the Make Trax control panel overlay
Cracks in the Make Trax control panel overlay
Finally, I have the Make Trax cabinet totally stripped and with Alberto to add wheels because every game will be on wheels sooner than later in the bavacade. The cabinet, overall, is close to mint save the control panel overlay which cracking. When Tim and I were getting Reclaim Arcade up and running I came across an original control panel overlay for this game and snagged it, it was one of the things that came over with the container so I asked Alberto iof he could remove the old one and add this one, and as he says to everything, “No problem!” He’s the best! He removed the old one, which by all accounts from Tim is a totally nightmare, and got it sanded and cleaned up.
Sanded Make Trax control panel ready for the like-new original overlay
After that, he put on the new overlay and it looks like new! So good. Sometimes those things I bought that I thought “Will I use this” are now almost all in use, and that makes me happy.
Alberto’s work on these cabinets continues to blow my mind, this control panel is, indeed, like new thanks to his craftsmanship
I think the next game to go on wheels will be Elevator Action, so will start taking that one apart, and that will mean 16 of the 30 games in the bavacade will be on wheels, and that means I am have crossed the half-way mark, which is encouraging progress! It also means I will have stripped almost every game down to just the cabinet if I manage to get wells on all of them. That’s pretty awesome.
During the pandemic, the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit famously sparked a huge increase in chess interest — but one online play engine turned what would have been a spike into a groundswell that eclipses even esports. Jessica Lucas traces how the royal game became a digital juggernaut.
By January 2023, Chess.com reported hitting over 10 million active players in a single day—more than the daily average of World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, and Among Us combined—leading the site’s servers to crash. Its online schedule now features a who’s who of chess grand masters who provide content for users almost 24 hours a day. A new class of chess celebrities, like sisters Alexandra and Andrea Botez, who recently surpassed 1 million Twitch subscribers on their joint account, and international master Levy Rozman, who has over 3 million YouTube subscribers, regularly appear on Chess.com.
Between Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers, it looks like video game movies are making a comeback – and this time, they're actually half decent! Not to be outdone, it seems Capcom is vying for another adaptation of its iconic Street Fighter series, having sold off the film rights to to Legendary Entertainment only a few days ago. — Read the rest
'Challenge runs' are a strange and simultaneously irresistible thing. Take a suitably open-ended and pliable game, like Dark Souls, Minecraft or Fallout, impose a set of arbitrary restrictions on yourself, and watch the hilarity ensue. Whether it's beating Dark Souls with only a hundred arrows and no other weapons or trying to have sex with every possible partner in New Vegas as quickly as possible, there's nothing like challenge runs to give you a different perspective on these beloved games and a real appreciation for all these interlocking systems. — Read the rest
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the developers of the wildly popular Yakuza series, recently launched a livestream with one simple goal: Beat (almost) every Yakuza game in the series, from acclaimed prequel Yakuza 0 to the more somber Yakuza 6. It took almost 170 hours of streaming, but at long last and with a truly staggering amount of bicycles broken over goons' backs, the Ryu Ga Gotoku team brought it home. — Read the rest
A recent earnings report released by Gamestop has, well, reported that they earned a profit of $48 million last quarter. This is, comparatively, quite a step up from their net loss of $147.5 million last year. Net sales and inventory have also dropped, however, continuing the steady decline of the last few years. — Read the rest
After initially being promised close to launch, Elden Ring has finally received its ray-tracing update a little more than a year later. The patch was stealth dropped in the truest sense of the word, with only a same-day Twitter post to clue players in. — Read the rest
Like the Venture post before it, most of this was originally published as part of the bavacade repair log from February 9, 2023. But in service of searchability and documenting these cabinet overhauls more individually, I’m breaking this out into its own post.
Broken corner in Dig Dug cabinet
There was a big gouge in the bottom rear corner of the Dig Dug cabinet that was bothering me to no end. The cabinet was otherwise quite solid, and I have to say the seller ensured everything in it was original, which is always nice. One thing that struck me when taking this apart was how well designed the Atari cabinets are. This was the first one I disassembled, and it was the easiest yet by far. I love the way the light and speaker are combined onto one piece of plywood for easy removal.
Light and speaker mounted unit for Dig Dug cabinet
The coin door setup is also super easy to remove with a genius design that allows you to attach and detach the coin box easily and tighten the door with all bolts seated using attached, movable nuts. When you disassemble enough of these machines you begin to appreciate good design choices.
Bolt system for coin doors for the Atari Dig Dug cabinet
The cabinet work for this game was a bit more straightforward. Epoxy for the gouged lower corner and for the various imperfections along the trim. I have new t-molding on order, so this game should be mint very soon.
Some taping of Dig Dug for touch-up paint
There were a few places the cracks in the sides meant I needed to do some touch-up paint work, and the base color of his cabinet is closer to off-white than pure white, so I found myself adding yellow to pure white paint to get a better match, and that was fun. It’s not perfect, but you would need to know what you are looking for in just a few spots to see the difference. It’s approaching perfection for me, so more than passable for most I hope. Also, none of the original artwork was touched, so this was already a pretty impressive cabinet, that just got awesomer!
Dig Dug After touch-up paint and before light sanding
There are a couple of things I still needed to attend to, and I got around to them after returning from travel. The first task was fixing the marquee light that blows every florescent tube I’ve put in there. I believe it’s the ballast on the light fixture, but I decided to go the easy route for the time being and just attach a 12V switching power supply to convert 120V power line to 12V in order to attach a 12V LED light strip.
12 volt switching power supply in Dig Dug cabinet to enable LED marquee to work
That worked well, although the light is a bit bright, so I am looking to find some opaque tinted tape to dial down the lumens. Right now I have masking tape as a work-around, but that might not be the best idea
LED strip in Dig Dug marquee masked to dim light was some masking tape
That said, the marquee is now working quite well, and it is an original glass, not pasltic, marquee, which is extra special:
Dig Dug marquee lit up
Next up, the power brick was pretty noisy, so I thought it might be a big blue cap that needed to be replaced. It’s an easy job, so I brought a couple back from America and swapped out the existing one. Unfortunately the noise persisted, so in the interim I switched the power prick from Millipede, which is dead quiet, with the one from Dig Dug. I did this not only because Dig Dug is in the foyer and the noise can get annoying, but also because Millipede is next game up for a quick refurbish and wheels. While Alberto is working on Millipede, I’ll see if I can figure out what is making the loud humming noise on the Dig Dug brick.
Wiring for a Big Blue cap on an Atari power brick for Dig Dug
Finally, the smooth, black t-molding is on order, and should arrive soon. But apart from that, this is another mint cabinet that sits alongside Donkey Kong Jr, Galaxian, and Pac-man in the bavamanse foyer!
Dig Dug is re-assembled and looking groovy
When I asked my aunt back in 2014 if my old Game Boy Color was still around, she handed it to me, but confirmed that the A and B buttons no longer worked properly. The Game Boy Color is a handheld game console that was released in 1998 as a successor to the black-and-white Game Boy (1989), though both consoles were discontinued in 2003. My grandmother had died recently, and we were clearing out my and my brother’s belongings from her newly empty house. Truthfully, I hadn’t touched this handheld console since the mid-2000s, around the time I upgraded from the family desktop computer to my own personal laptop. The title stickers on some of the cartridges had begun to wear out, but I held hope that this wasn’t an indicator of what their inside was like, or whether they had reached the end of their lives. I told my aunt I’d find a way to fix the buttons, to which she answered, “Why would you want to repair something from the past when the quality of what’s now in the present, on the market, is infinitely better?” In the mind of many people, it is indeed better to wait for a newer, more technologically advanced model to come out, a manifestation of planned obsolescence which we have learned to live with.
Photo by the author of a purple Game Boy Color with Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Blue cartridges.
Flash forward to 2022, and I had still not managed to fix the buttons on my deep-purple handheld but I attended a Game Boy Hardware Hacking workshop hosted by Lee Wilkins, with the support of Alex Custodio and Michael Iantorno as part of a series of events leading up to a Solar Game (Boy) Jam. The purpose of this workshop was to hack into the console to alter the way it functions, involving changing the buttons. After a quick presentation, we started by removing the external screws from the Game Boy Color console using an “iFixit” toolkit. We had to use a tri-wing screwdriver because the screws Nintendo uses aren’t the typical Phillips; picture a peace sign Y, instead of a plus sign +. The internal screws were a plus sign (Phillips), however. The point of the screws requiring a different screwdriver is to stop you from getting in, but once you’re in, you’re in. We then took both sides of the case apart slowly, careful not to damage the screen or circuit board.
Photo by Yiou Wang of the author holding the Game Boy they had taken apart.
While concerned with sustainability throughout my whole life, ever since we had a tree-planting day at school when I was eight years old, my main takeaway from the workshop was not sustainability, but that I had been implicated in the process of making. I was made into an actor: not in the theatrical sense, but I had been given a role in making the game instead of just playing it. In other words, I became a “prosumer,” a mix between producer and consumer (Berg, Narayan, Rajala, 2021). I, and the workshop attendees, gained a form of agency that day through hardware hacking.
Taking the console apart felt cool, but we still had more to do. We wanted to hack into it and alter some of its functions, particularly the buttons, so the next step involved soldering. I had done some soldering before, with Alex and Michael as well, in May. We had replaced the volatile memory batteries on some Game Boy cartridges, which had to be soldered on the motherboard to stay in place. In the more recent workshop’s case, we soldered the exposed part of the wires onto the buttons and the wires served as extensions of the buttons which we could attach to conducting elements using alligator clips.
After everything was in place, we had to think about movements that would close the circuit on each button. We glued aluminium paper on cardboard to make bracelets, rings, headbands, and other accessories to connect to the alligator clips. Yiou, a visiting scholar, sketched out the positions we would be standing in. We stood in a circle to symbolise a circuit, with Alex holding the console in the middle of the circle. We each wore one or two of the accessories we had prepared earlier. The workshop attendees worked together: in order to move downwards, I would high-five Justin, Justin would (gently) smack Owen’s head to go left, and Richy and Yiou would elbow-bump to go right. Unfortunately, Tetris doesn’t have an upwards function so we couldn’t test Owen and Richy fist-bumping to go up. We modded a Game Boy console to become THE Game Boy console and played the coolest game of communal Tetris ever!
As I’m writing this, people are preparing for the eShop closure (the electronic Nintendo store through which people can purchase digital copies of games and other programs) on Nintendo 3DS and Wii U consoles by downloading everything they’d purchased before they no longer can, as per Nintendo’s official announcement. The 3Ds, successor of the DS (2004), was released in 2011 while the Wii U, successor of the Wii (2006), was released in 2012. People can still buy second-hand games for both platforms, in the form of physical cartridges, but as of this month (March 2023), they can no longer buy them digitally from Nintendo. This news came around the same time it was announced in Nintendo Direct that classic Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games will now be included in the Nintendo Switch Online membership, in digital form. Fans suspect DS and 3DS games will be next.
As defined by industrial designer Brooks Stevens in 1954, planned obsolescence is a marketing strategy that presumes that electronics are made with the intent that the consumer will want to discard them by the time their successor comes out on the market through “instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary” (Adamson and Gordon, 2003). Many people assume that with planned obsolescence, their electronics will break down immediately, or that their electronics will stop functioning. However, scholars suggest that consumers will be under the impression that their belongings stopped functioning because they don’t function the same way the latest model does (Miao, 2011; Kuppelwieser and Klaus and Mathiou and Boujena, 2019). In other words, it’s not really becoming out of use as much as it would become inconvenient to use them in conjunction with other existing, newer models on the market.
In a sense, getting into the console to fix a button or switch out the screen are sustainable efforts to combat planned obsolescence, all while giving consumers more agency over what they consume.
In Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020), the game doesn’t end once the players reach the end credits. After the credits roll, one of the game’s NPCs, or non-player characters, tells the player that they’ve unlocked terraforming, making them an official “Island Designer” who can reshape hills, cliffs, create ponds, move bridges, to personalise their islands a step further than redecorating by putting down items from their pockets. Terraforming even comes with a white hard hat the player must wear every time they’re changing the architecture. This new feature that wasn’t included in previous iterations of the game before 2020 gives the player some form of agency, in my opinion, over what the game they’re playing looks like. In this case, agency was given, thus making it voluntary on the behalf of the development team and different from the agency consumers achieve through hacking and modding.
A form of agency I am more concerned with is people taking the reins of technology for themselves out of a want or a need. When I couldn’t get my Game Boy Color buttons to work in 2014—desperate to play Pokémon Crystal again—my first thought was to give up and purchase a 3DS, which would have newer editions of the game, though not the exact game I wanted to play. But I found a solution: Twitter friends opened my eyes to the world of emulators. To explain it simply, emulators tell a computing platform to operate a certain way that mimics another computing platform in order to run software that only works on a certain platform. Emulators exist for almost any platform and can even be encased in a shell that looks like one of the retro handheld consoles, another form of agency the players themselves have taken. I downloaded a Game Boy emulator onto my laptop and then downloaded a ROM file[1] of Pokémon Crystal that someone had modded to work on an emulator. I had so much fun playing it and reliving my memories, I ended up locking myself in my room for hours and hours every day that summer.
Photo by the author of the author’s Raspberry Pi computer encased in a shell made to look like a classic Game Boy.
As the technology advances, there will be more to consider in the process to stop defunct consoles from ending up in landfills. When it comes to software, emulators have proven to be the way to go to preserve the games. In the case of Nintendo closing down eShops for decade-old handheld consoles, it could be justified as the company choosing to focus their efforts on their current consoles over continuing to invest in supporting older platforms, which requires human labour and financial cost.
It can be quite scary to not know where to begin or which tools you need to repair or alter electronics, but all you need to do is to start tinkering. I will leave you with my now-functioning Game Boy Color buttons, taken apart, then replaced by my brother—who, just like me, has no background in any of this, but also has a lot of curiosity and doesn’t want to give up on our childhood memories.
Photo by the author’s brother of a workshop area with tweezers, screwdrivers, rubbing alcohol.
[1]Read-Only Memory, the software data present on the game cartridges.
Adamson, G., Gordon, D. (2003) Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World. MIT Press, Cambridge.
Berg, P., Narayan, R., Rajala, A. (2021) “Ideologies in Energy Transition: Community Discourses on Renewables.” Technology Innovation Management Review 11(7/8): 79-91.
Kuppelwieser, V., Klaus, P., Manthiou, A., Boujena, O. (2019) “Consumer responses to planned obsolescence.” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 47: 157-165.
Miao, C. H. (2011) “Planned Obsolescence and Monopoly Undersupply.” Journal of Information Economics and Policy 23(1):51-58.
With the impending release of Street Fighter 6 promising to potentially deliver one of the greatest fighting games ever produced, the excitement shared by fans of the fighting genre grows daily. And if receiving the next installment of Cacpom's flagship fighter wasn't enough, fans also have the release of Tekken 8 and Mortal Kombat 12 to look forward to. — Read the rest
In a bit of gaming news that probably won't surprise anyone, Forspoken proved a critical and commercial failure. Square Enix tried to make lemonade out of their lemons, though, stating to investors that "the game has also received positive feedback on its action features, including its parkour and combat capabilities, so it has yielded results that will lead to improvement of our development capabilities of other games in the future." — Read the rest
Gaming insider Jason Schreier has reported that Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has been delayed yet again, leaving it with a vague 'later this year' release window. This delay comes after significant backlash following a gameplay showcase a few weeks ago, in which Rocksteady's long-awaited continuation of the Arkham series proved to be little more than a big, bland live-service nothingburger. — Read the rest
In this deep dive for SFGATE.com, Charles Russo tracks the beginnings of the modern video game industry, which has its roots in a “scrappy Silicon Valley startup” now known as Atari. Its founders, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, had previously created Computer Space, a futuristic yellow machine that was the world’s first coin-operated video game. Under Atari they went on to develop Pong, the classic arcade game, which was introduced to the American public in March 1973 — exactly 50 years ago — and became an instant success. Russo’s piece also includes some fantastic photographs from the ’70s — my favorite is a snapshot of a massive retro Atari arcade game at the Powell Street BART station in downtown San Francisco, surrounded by people with bell-bottoms.
All told, Atari was in many ways the early embodiment of the modern Silicon Valley narrative: groundbreaking innovation, unconventional business strategy and — most notably — the profound impact of integrating technology into our lives (namely in the form of the culturally ubiquitous Atari 2600 home gaming system).
Regardless of the medium, art exists at the intersection between passion and precision. Whether it's summoning the appropriate technique or implementing the proper tools, crafting a masterpiece is almost always an exercise in exactitude. Few mediums capture the profundity of art's dichotomous nature as potently as video games. — Read the rest
The small development studio behind mobile standouts Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey is teasing its next game. Laya’s Horizon will be a Netflix Games title from indie studio Snowman, known for the satisfyingly addictive gameplay of the Alto series.
The brief trailer showcases a game world on a seaside landscape. The scenery could easily be a lower-poly version of Breath of the Wild, as the camera pans back to reveal windmills, hot-air balloons and jagged cliffs. Ultimately, we glimpse a person in a cape or flying suit perched atop the landscape who we can only assume is the playable protagonist.
The trailer doesn’t reveal anything about Laya’s Horizon gameplay or its release date. However, a description reads, “A whole new world is just beyond the horizon…” In addition, a representative for Snowman told Engadget, “While we’re not quite ready to share details about the game yet, we can say that it’s an entirely new IP and something we’ve been working on for a long time.”
Netflix’s unconventional move into mobile gaming has spawned a quality library of over 40 Android and iOS games, none including ads or microtransactions. The games are all free to download and play for subscribers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-studio-behind-altos-odyssey-is-making-a-new-game-for-netflix-171611903.html?src=rssLaya’s Horizon
Gaming artwork for ‘Laya’s Horizon.’ It shows a person in an orange cape overlooking a sprawling countryside with hot-air balloons and another person gliding in the air (wearing a similar orange cape).
From adorable pets to exotic safaris, the Pokémon universe offers a sprawling jungle gym for players. Writer and gamer Nate Carlin gives a guided tour of what he calls the franchise's naive ecotopia.
The post Into the Not-So-Wild World of Pokémon appeared first on Edge Effects.
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Maria Zorn | Longreads | March 7, 2023 | 3,373 words (12 minutes)
In middle school, I would hide behind a giant oleander bush when it was time for the bus to leave for track and field meets and then, once it left without me, I’d walk to Panda Express and eat chow mein in blissful peace. This was also my strategy for grieving you. I thought I could, like a rapacious vole, burrow myself into the branches of the quotidian and the bus of mourning would pass me by altogether.
This is not to say that I didn’t ever experience a sense of loss. It was always there, a constant drip. Sometimes I’d think about the scene Mom came upon when the locksmith finally got your apartment door open and feel as though my kneecaps were going to crumble into ash beneath me. I wondered if there were claw marks on the floor from where you tried to stay as you felt your heart stop beating, or if you slid easily away like a clump of lint and dog hair into a Roomba. In these moments I wished to be vacuumed whole.
* Name and location have been changed for privacy.
Sophie works at the post office in Saanichton, British Columbia.* She is tall and sinewy with thin, bony shoulders. Her body could be drawn using only straight lines, just like yours. Her hair is jet black and always pulled back into a low ponytail that nestles into the nape of her neck. She appears to be more at ease when she is behind the counter than when she is in front of it, exposed. Her voice is low and quiet and when she gets flustered she holds her elbows close to her rib cage and her hands near her shoulders like an adorable T. rex. Her mannerisms are what initially drew Mom to her, what first reminded her of you. But then she saw her protruding clavicle and her thick top lip and her round doe eyes and she couldn’t unsee the physical resemblance. She wants me to help her think of a way to befriend Sophie that doesn’t begin with: You remind me of my dead son and I would do anything to spend time with you. I just don’t know what to tell her.
Perhaps the better metaphor is that my grief for you stalked me like those ghosts in Ms. Pac-Man. I was chasing dots with my mouth wide open, trying to outrun you. The dots were moments I still felt some semblance of myself in a world without you in it, they were anyone and anything that could drain me of all of my energy and attention, they were being able to feel light enough to giggle, they were attempting to Irish dance while waiting for my tea kettle to whistle. The ghosts were you, at 8, declining to go on a playdate because you were afraid I wouldn’t have anyone to play with; you, at 16, threatening to hit the boy who broke my heart with your car; you, at 22, telling me we were soulmates with tears in your eyes at the Molly Wee pub; the ghosts were you, you, you, you with pastel sheets over your head, cutouts for your big Bambi eyes.
Mom gets butterflies in her stomach before she goes to the post office. She’s glad for once that she has a P.O. box, that the mail carrier doesn’t come to her mossy, rural strip of the Saanich Peninsula. She blow-dries her light blonde hair until it falls in cascading curls around her face and blinks on mascara. She pulls on her stylish brown leather boots and steals one last look at herself in the mirror. She takes a deep inhale that tickles the pain in her chest. Mom wants to be more than friends with Sophie, but not in the traditional sense of the phrase. I loved you like a soulmate, but not in the traditional sense of the phrase. These loves are fluid, these loves are nonbinary.
* Name has been changed for privacy.
The dots I chased were Chris, because every emotion I felt with him was neon.* We slept glued together like spider monkeys, and when I woke up before him I would be completely still and study him worshipfully — his toffee-colored skin that was softer than a kitten’s ear, his charcoal ringlets. We watched videos of Thom Yorke dancing for hours at a time, we did a special little jig when we bought a bottle of puttanesca sauce. When I was sad, he’d get out a Japanese sword that was left at the bar where he worked and throw watermelons in the air for me to slice like a fruit ninja. He could make anything fun, could make anything a game — but he was always the team captain. I was never certain whether it was our 14-year age gap or simply his personality, but he felt as much like a coach as he did a boyfriend. I thought he shut me down when I disagreed with him and I knew he blew his nose in our dirty laundry, and these things both made me furious. Two years passed and we morphed into ever uglier versions of ourselves. We yelled at each other outside of Joe’s Pizza by the Slice, he was a gargoyle and I was a swamp lizard and then we were two terribly sad people who didn’t talk anymore. For months after we broke up, I lay in bed every night, crusty with dried tears and snot, and my ribs felt loose. I imagined Chris playing Radiohead songs on them like they were piano keys while I tried and failed to fall asleep. I was convinced that if I concentrated hard enough on my heartache for him that I would not notice how hollow I felt from your goneness.
You wore six-inch platform creepers and voluptuous shaggy Mongolian lamb coats, Rick Owens pencil skirts and black leather fingerless gloves. You ordered a floor-length sheer dressing gown with sleeves trimmed in feathers. When Mom said she liked it but it looked like something one would wear over a négligée, you earnestly replied: But I don’t have a négligée yet! Before I moved to New York with you, I came to visit and had to use my tube top as a pillowcase since you owned only one. I cleaned your apartment while you scoured town for a fake ID for me, an even trade. After sweeping the 600-square-foot space I had a chinchilla-sized pile of dust and boa fragments and sequins and dirt and I felt like Cruella de Vil’s housekeeper. You made a fool of the words “feminine” and “masculine” — you were neither, you were both. You called yourself an alien frequently, and even got one tattooed on your right arm. You felt like you were so different from other humans that you were extraterrestrial. No one we knew used they/them pronouns, no one we knew used terms like “nonbinary,” like “gender-fluid.” You knew you didn’t identify with other men, but you also knew you didn’t feel like other women. I wonder if you would have felt like such an alien if you knew you didn’t have to choose. I wonder if you would have tried snorting heroin that night if you didn’t feel like such an alien.
My dots were my budding career at a tech startup that I thought was so much more impressive than it actually was. I worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. then came home, ate noodles, propped my laptop on the pudge of my lower belly, and kept working in bed until I fell asleep. I tried dating during this phase, but I got more pleasure from telling men I was busy and then later breaking things off than I did from going to dinner with them.
My eyes began to tolerate all of the computer work I was doing less and less until it felt like all that occupied my sockets were two purple bruises covered in fire ants. After trips to six different ophthalmologists, I was diagnosed with non-length dependent small fiber polyneuropathy and ocular rosacea and told that a career that involved “excessive screen time” was probably not in the cards for me. The doctor looked at me with a very serious expression that was made less serious by a small piece of avocado that clung to his mustache. I was such a people pleaser that in this moment all I could think of was making this a smooth experience for him so that he didn’t go look in the mirror after our conversation and feel like an idiot for having a dirty ’stache. This was a time in my life when if someone gave me a ride, I’d offer them a kidney. I jammed the shock and anguish I felt into the depths of my pockets alongside pennies and crescent-shaped nail fragments, I arranged my face into an awkward smile and said: No worries!
I wonder if you would have felt like such an alien if you knew you didn’t have to choose.
I quit my job and the online college courses I was taking and returned to bartending with the enthusiasm of a wet tube sock. An overly cheerful woman with a hair growing from the mole on her chin asked me to surprise her with a drink and I poured well rum and apple juice into a pint glass with no ice then charged her $13 for it. I didn’t talk to my friends who were graduating and starting careers, I stopped dating. I closed in on myself and got smaller and smaller until, like a Shrinky Dink, I could be pierced and worn on a string as a hideous pendant.
I had moved back home to Arizona after you died because I couldn’t stay in New York City without you. The ghosts were too speedy there, but the dots were too far apart in Phoenix. I needed to get out. I applied for a sales position in Denver that promised not to involve the computer, packed my belongings into my beat-up red hatchback and took myself to Colorado. Driving through mountain passes, I felt an indelible sense of hope that this change of scenery would make me better, whatever that meant.
I watched the video you recorded six months before you died yesterday, the one where you’re drinking Veuve with your friend Michelle and explaining what you want done with your ashes if anything ever happens to you. You throw your head back to cackle between your outlandish requests and I stare at your pale throat. Some ashes stored in a Ming vase, some made into diamonds, some shot out of a cannon with glitter. Mom and I looked into the cannon, but all we could find was some silly handheld thing called the “Loved One Launcher” that appeared to be used primarily at memorial services held next to creeks and swamps, judging from their marketing material. It definitely wasn’t the right fit.
We didn’t know how to “memorialize” someone who felt as essential as a limb. In our indecision, we landed on taking a trip someplace beautiful every year on the anniversary of your death. We’ve been to Cabo San Lucas, Aspen, Copenhagen, Sooke. We split a bottle of rosé and hold hands and your absence is outlined in chalk on the picnic blanket we sit on. Once, we hiked 13 miles to a beautiful alpine lake to scatter some of your ashes and I carried them on my back. I had only your remains and a bottle of wine in my pack but the straps dug into my shoulders until they were pink as salmon. We sang “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” by the Hollies and laughed and cried at the same time. When we dumped your ashes in the water they shimmered in the sun like the glitter you wore on your eyelids and cheeks during your teen raver years. I wanted so badly to look up at the sky that was the same blue as your eyes and feel unadulterated solace, but instead I felt nothing at all.
This year on May 30, I think Mom is going to take me to the post office.
My dots were jobs, jobs, new jobs every few months. I worked as a kiosk wench for HelloFresh, a sales manager for StretchLab, a preschool teacher at a country day school, a fitness instructor at Life Time, at a physical therapy clinic, at a Pilates studio. I went back to school to become an art teacher, then quit that and took a yearlong nutrition course, then decided I never actually want to talk to anyone about what they eat. I remembered once hearing the phrase “throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks” and I imagined myself doing parkour off the furniture at each of my jobs, shooting noodles and marinara out of my fingertips and watching the pasta bounce off of the reformers, the little children, the clinic walls like rubber. I had eaten all of the dots in the maze and was left aimlessly bumping into its corners with a jaw ache, desperately trying to avoid a ghost pileup.
I had a dream that I was walking around a city map, but the map wasn’t made of paper — it was a black iPhone, the glass so shattered it looked like it was filled with streets and boulevards. All the roads filled with white powder until I couldn’t move my legs anymore. The phone was yours, and it sat next to a full pour of wine, murky reddish-black like blood. You died sitting up — bony ass on the floor, back against the side of your bed, pale slim fingers wrapped around your glass. How did you manage not to spill one drop? Why did you think heroin was a suitable nightcap after cocaine, Adderall, alcohol?
I remember sitting on the back porch of Mom’s house with you every night one summer, talking and smoking hookah for hours until the metal patio chairs branded the back of our sweaty legs with checkers. Even at 10 p.m. it was over 100 degrees in Phoenix. I’d feel droplets of sweat crawl from my armpits down my sides and settle into the waistband of my boxer shorts. We’d put a splash of milk in the water pipe because you were convinced that would make the smoke cloudier, more fun to blow O rings with. You confessed one of these nights to smoking black tar heroin once during your sophomore year of high school, when you were a self-proclaimed “mall goth.” I whapped you with the wooden hookah mouthpiece, hard, right in the solar plexus. I thought about the time we gobbled up so many of Dad’s prescription drugs and drank so much prosecco that we blacked out an entire journey from Amsterdam to Phoenix, including a three-hour layover that was apparently in Detroit, judging from the translucent blue lighter we bought that said Motown City and the greasy Little Caesar’s receipt that sat cross-legged in the bottom of my purse. I was not prudish about getting fucked up, but with this anecdote you crossed a threshold into territory that scared me. You took a sharp inhale and raised your dark eyebrows, fighting back a laugh. You said: Obviously that was dumb and I’ll never try it again. I made you promise with a pinkie, even though you were 19 and I was 17. Your recklessness with your life produced in me a worry that sat like a small, hard stone in my belly.
You’d hate the way dying from a heroin overdose sounds. You’d have me let everyone know that you were “trying to buy opium.” That you were supposed to go to a wedding in Greece in two months, New York Fashion Week in three. That you didn’t mean for it to happen this way.
The dots were gone, but I became so adroit at ghost evasion I no longer needed them — I was eating strawberries, oranges, bananas, cherries. I found a drug that makes my eye condition more tolerable, a job I like well enough, a dog who constantly wants to shake my hand. I found a partner with Reptar green and caramel eyes who gives me grace like a daily train ticket, who calls you Tomm, not “your brother,” whose calm demeanor lowers my blood pressure and provides a certitude that life is allowed to feel good. I thought Jack’s love was a fuzzy sweater I could don and become whole. I saw no portents of a more substantial ghost, one that could swallow me entirely. I fell into the mouth of a ghost as though it was a shoddy manhole cover; it took me by surprise and then devoured me until I was wholly in its maw and could not see a single shred of light through its incisors. My grief developed its own physical presence, its own pulse. I feared that it was going to burst through my bones like the Kool-Aid man at any moment and take me over completely. My first instinct was to wrestle it to the ground, to mash my teeth into its ears and give it a noogie, since I was always the brute of the family. I knew you’d try to reason with it, to write it a letter using your shiniest vocabulary like the ones you’d send to Mom and Dad to convince them to raise our allowance, to get a pet sugar glider, to let you get your ears pierced, to legally change the “Jr.” that follows your name to the more sophisticated and chic “II.” You’d arrange all of your best arguments like toy soldiers followed by rebuttals of anticipated counter-arguments, then sign: Please don’t be mad at me. As a card-carrying atheist I didn’t know who to write a letter to. The universe? You?
I loved you like a soulmate, but not in the traditional sense of the phrase.
My therapist recommended I try ketamine for treatment-resistant depression and I had my first session this week. I thought of you because the first time I heard the word “ketamine” was when you snorted it in ninth grade and then came out to Mom, and the first time I heard the term “treatment-resistant depression” was after I talked about you to my therapist, seven years after you died. I filled out a questionnaire that tests for suicidality and it was only then that I realized my sadness had become life-threatening. I had a primordial urge to go wherever it is that you are. I’d sign my note to Mom and Jack: Please don’t be mad at me.
The nurse anesthetist injected the drug into my shoulder and it felt like a gentle bee sting. There were colors and textures and sounds that I can’t explain, but what I remember most of all was you. Your hair was dyed platinum blonde and a thin white shirt hugged your angular frame. You were resplendent. You were laughing and reaching out for my hand, and I chased you across tiles that lit up under our feet as we stepped on them. We knew you were not alive but we also knew that you were not gone. Looking at you, for the first time in seven years, didn’t feel like gazing directly into a car’s headlights at night; you didn’t singe my delicate eyes with your brightness. You hugged me the way you always did, so tightly that your upper ribs jabbed into my torso with a titty-puncturing ferocity, like you were holding on for dear life, and I felt an ineffable sense of something inside me being cauterized. Later I’d recall a mathematical concept from high school in which two lines get very, very close together but never actually end up touching and wonder if, for me, this would be the closest I’d ever get to feeling peace about your death. As I began to regain consciousness, your face became pixelated and the crinkles around your eyes started to smoothen and fade. The first part of my body that woke up was my mouth, and I could feel my chapped lips pressing together with alacrity to form a small smile. Before you disappeared completely, you said: What if it’s all true at once? You held those words up like a trophy and I unzipped my chest and put them inside.
Maria Zorn is a writer and visual artist currently living in Denver, Colorado.
Editor: Cheri Lucas Rowlands
Copy-editor: Krista Stevens
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