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Fun Time: Exploring Clocks, Computers, and Videogames

image of Fun Time: Exploring Clocks, Computers, and Videogames
  • By Rebecca Rouse1
  • 1 University of Skövde, Sweden
  • Source: Narrative Interplay in the Digital Era , pp 147-161
  • Publication Date: November 2025
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835952054_7
  • Language: English
  • Accessibility Summary:  EPUB 3 and pdf file included; compatible with devices and software which can read these formats. Adjustable font size, spacing, contrast, text justification, number of columns (ePUB only). Alternative text for images. Tagged with a logical reading order to assist screen readers. Navigation between in-text citations and reference list, and endnotes and endnote markers.

How do we experience time in videogames, and what are the social and political implications? When we understand the experience of time as a philosophical construct with its own aesthetics, mechanics, and politics we can arrive at a deeper understanding of the politics of flow, the dominant aesthetic in the experience of game-time. As games become an increasingly culturally dominant form, awareness of the politics and impacts of the computer medium and technological antecedents such as the clock are important to examine if we want to understand the meaning of the time we spend having fun today.

Keywords: clocks ; computer history ; fun ; time ; videogames

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Fun Time: Exploring Clocks, Computers, and Videogames
Intellect , 147 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835952054_7
/content/books/9781835952054.book-part-008
/content/books/9781835952054.book-part-008
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References

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References

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  2. Blitz, M. (2016). “Bertie the Brain Still Lives: The Story of the World’s First Arcade Game,” Popular Mechanics, November 2. https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a23660/bertie-the-brain/. Accessed May 20, 2025.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bolter, J.D. (2014). “The Aesthetics of Flow and the Aesthetics of Catharsis,” in Technology and Desire: The Transgressive Art of Moving Images, ed R. Gaffer and M. Schulz. Bristol: Intellect, 121–36.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Burian, J.M. (1970). “Josef Svoboda: Theater Artist in an Age of Science,” Educational Theatre Journal 22.2: 123–45.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Cipolla, C.M. (1967). Clocks and Culture: 1300–1700. London: W.W. Norton & Company.
  6. Csikzentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
  7. De Koven, B. (2013). The Well-Played Game: A Player’s Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  8. De Koven, B. (2020). The Infinite Playground: A Player’s Guide to Imagination. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  9. Deconinck, C. (2023). “Sweden to Cut Use of Screens in Schools as Reading Standards Suffer,” Brussels Signal, August 22. https://brusselssignal.eu/2023/08/sweden-to-cut-use-of-screens-in-schools-as-reading-standards-suffer/#google_vignette. Accessed May 20, 2025.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Fassone, R. (2017). Every Game is an Island: Endings and Extremities in Video Games. London: Bloomsbury.
  11. Hench, J. and P. Van Pelt (2009). Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show. Glendale: Disney Editions.
  12. Hersant, Y. (1988). “Introduction,” in Arcadia: Slot Machines of Europe and America, ed. J. Baudet. Tunbridge Wells: Costello, 7–33.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Huhtamo, E. (2005). “Slots of Fun, Slots of Trouble: An Archaeology of Arcade Gaming,” in Handbook of Computer Games Studies, ed. J. Raessens and J. Goldstein. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 3–22.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Kerrison, M. (2022). Immersive Storytelling for Real and Imagined Worlds: A Writer’s Guide. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions.
  15. Khang, H., J.K. Kim, and Y. Kim (2013) “Self-Traits and Motivations as Antecedents of Digital Media Flow and Addiction: The Internet, Mobile Phones, and Video Games,” Computers in Human Behaviour 29.6: 2413–24.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. King, R. (2000). Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture. London: Walker & Company.
  17. Kreps, S. (2016). Drones: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  18. Mac, G. (2012). “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave,” Mother Jones, March/April. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor. Accessed April 7, 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Mortensen, T. (2004). “Flow, Seduction, and Mutual Pleasures,” paper presented at Other Players conference, Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, December 6–8.
  20. Nadarajan, G. (2007). “Islamic Automation: A Reading of al-Jazari’s The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, 1206,” Foundation for Science, Technology, and Civilisation, August: 1–16.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Nelson, T. (1974). Computer Lib/Dream Machines. Redmond: Tempus Books of Microsoft Press.
  22. Panofsky, E. (1997; 2009). Perspective as a Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books.
  23. Rouse, R. (2022). “Understanding a Complex Inheritance: Measurement, Game Culture, Military Technology, & Computer Science Legacies in GUX,” in What Happens When We Play: A Critical Approach to Games User Experience Design and Education, ed. R. Rouse, B. Berg Marklund, and A.-S. Alklind Taylor. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon ETC Press, 83–118.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Salen, K.S. and E. Zimmerman (2003). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  25. Salter, A. and B. Blodgett (2017). Toxic Geek Masculinity in Media: Sexism, Trolling, and Identity Policing. Cham: Springer Nature.
  26. Sarkeesian, A. and A. Cross (2015). “Your Humanity Is in Another Castle: Terror Dreams and the Harassment of Women,” in The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture, ed. D. Goldberg and L. Larsson. New York: Seven Stories Press, 103–26.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Schaber, W. (2004). Hellbrunn: Schloss, Park and Wasserspiele. Salzburg: Schlossverwaltung Hellbrunn.
  28. Schell, J. (2008). The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
  29. Sharma, S. (2014). In the Meantime: Temporality and Cultural Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
  30. Sharp, J. and D. Thomas (2019). Fun, Taste, and Games: An Aesthetics of the Idle, Unproductive, and Otherwise Playful. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  31. Sutherland, I. and J. Ebergen (2002). “Computers Without Clocks: Asynchronous Chips Improve Computer Performance by Letting Each Circuit Run as Fast as It Can,” Scientific American, August: 62–69.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Sutton-Smith, B. (1997). The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  33. Thomas, D. (2016). “Fun,” in Debugging Game History: A Critical Lexicon, ed. H. Lowood and R. Guins. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 143–50.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Treadwell, Sophie (1928; 2014). Machinal. London: Nick Hern Books.
  35. Wernimont, J. (2018). Numbered Lives: Life and Death in Quantum Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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